Why all the different Olympic swimming events?

[Telemark]

@Edward The Head

In the Olympics there is only the 50 free, but in most other competitions they swim 50s of the other strokes.

Hrmm, in US high school and college I thought it was only 50 free. Learn something new every day.

I’d like to see an 800 IM.

As a former 200IM swimmer I’d like to see that too. I could barely complete a 400 IM back then, 800 would kill me.

[suranyi]

@saoirse

The Olympics are sporting events, so they don’t necessarily test anything that is “useful” (did you catch the ping-pong finals?). The swimming test the competitors’ ability to conform to the limits of the event in the least time. It’s like asking why there is a 10,000-meter walk, when running is much faster and walking is best suited to longer distances.

A bit of a nitpick, but I think relevant to the discussion of endurance events vs. sprints:

The SHORTEST race walk at the Olympics is 20,000 meters. The longest is 50,000 meters. That’s longer than the marathon.

Ed

[Jman]

Well, as a former competitive swimmer (high school level), I can tell you that in US High school, only the freestyle is competed at the 50m distance, except in relays, where the 200yd Medley was our medley relay (4x50m).

In Ohio, our event list was the same at all dual meets up through state competition:
200 Medley Relay, 200 Freestyle, 200 Individual Medley, 50 Freestyle, 100 Butterfly, 100 Freestyle, 500 freestyle, 200 Freestyle Relay, 100 Backstroke, 100 Breaststroke, 400 Freestyle Relay.

I’d imagine the reason there are 4 disciplines originated by the 4 reasons to change stroke. In the ocean, it’s hard to swim crawl with the waves, so people swam breaststroke. Floating on your back and swimming also can have breathing advantages, and a change in muscle fatigue. Crawl is the fastest. I think people just thought fly was cool…plus it’s quite fast… Anyway, when swimming competitions started, I’d imagine they were divided into the different ways there are to swim. There’s no real REASON you’d ever skip for distance, but there might be a reason (non competition wise) that you’d swim backstroke or breaststroke.

Anyway, I swam sprint freestyle, breaststroke, and the IM occassionally, and I can tell you that the breaststroke, if done right, is definitely NOT a distance stroke. In fact, it’s probably the second least suited to distance aside from fly. That said, if done with crappy form, it can be quite relaxing…though you don’t move much either.

[BobT]

This was on the schedule at last year’s CIF (California Interscholastic Federation) schedule for the Southern Section championship meet:
This will be in order the finals were held (distances in yards!):
Girls 200 medley relay
Boys 200 medley relay
Girls 200 free
Boys 200 free
Girls 200 IM
Boys 200 IM
Girls 50 free
Boys 50 free
Girls 100 fly
Boys 100 fly
Girls 100 free
Boys 100 free
Girls 500 free
Boys 500 free
Girls 200 free relay
Boys 200 free relay
Girls 100 back
Boys 100 back
Girls 100 breast
Boys 100 breast
Girls 400 free relay
Boys 400 free relay

I think that they used a 25 yard pool for this meet. In a 25 yard (or meter) pool, there used to be a big benefit in getting a great jump, because in older pools, where there wasn’t as much equipment for smoothing out the water, the swimmer who made the turn first could slow down the opponents a little by creating a bit of a wave.

Most of my knowledge of swimming though comes from the swimmers who were in the dorm with me over 20 years ago.