How are swimming lane placements determined?

Question

I notice that the best olympic swimmers (esp'ly Michael Phelps of course) always seem to be in lane 5 or lane 4. Who determines their placement and is there an advantage to being in the middle of the pool?

Answer 1

Usually, in Varsity and Club swimming, the fastest people are in the middle, while the slowest are on the ends.  I do not believe there is an advantage, because that would not be fair.  Also, you are not right next to the wall if you are on the end lanes.  If you look at the pool, you will see that there is still some space between the last lane lines and the wall.

Answer 2

The lane assignments are spread out by seeding time, with the fastest in lane four (in a usual eight lane pool), then moving out by the seed times.  An example, using the 50m free (not real times)

21.67

21.56

21.78

22.12

For those four times, the lane assignments would go as follows:

Lane 6: 22.12

Lane 5: 21.67

Lane 4: 21.56

Lane 3: 21.78

In an eight lane pool the times are spread out in lanes (in order): 4,5,3,6,2,7,1,8.

Answer 3

The people with the fastest seed times go in the middle lane, then the slower people are in the lane closer to the edge.