At least they won’t burst into flames or scatter body parts into the crowd.
Depends on the doping methods used.
Because tying bricks to swimmers to handicap the events had unfortunate results.
To give a little more background:
Breaststroke was the original “European” competitive stroke, pretty much the only one in use until the later 1800s. The freestyle, or variants of it, existed, but was swum primarily by people like Native Americans. It was faster but it was also splashy and it looked messy and was looked down on by many of the folks in charge of competitive swimming. By the time of the first Olympics the freestyle had become popular enough within competitive swimming circles that it was included in the program, along with its cousin the backstroke. But it took a while for these to become accepted.
So if you think of the breaststroke as the default, which it was, and if you recognize the cultural issues that kept it in common use despite not being the fastest stroke (“good civilized Europeans swim this refined stroke; wild uncivilized people from other lands swim this unrefined one; it’s refinement, not speed, that matters”), then the continuance of breaststroke is not all that surprising. And in every generation of swimmers there are those that are drawn to it or are especially good at it, so it continues.*
*And there may still be a cultural thing going on. I learned freestyle first, and always taught it first when I was a swim instructor, and I’ve never heard of any American that learned otherwise. But one of my uncles, born in the early forties in England, was taught the breaststroke first and says that was standard for the time and place.
As for the butterfly–Shodan has it right, it was a faster variant of the breaststroke, acceptable under the rules. Once that happens, you either abandon the original “breaststroke” for the new-fangled improvement, or ban the improvement, or add a new stroke. They decided to solve the problem by adding a new stroke.
I can’t answer specifically why underwater swimming is not allowed (past a certain point following a start or turn, at least), but it’s fair to echo the comment upstairs that underwater dolphin kicking isn’t very interesting. More to the point, perhaps, it’s just not how the powers that run competitive swimming see their sport. Figure skating bans backflips, triathlons don’t let cyclists draft other competitors, baseball doesn’t allow corked bats, soccer has an offside rule, basketball (I think) doesn’t allow the moving pick. Fundamentally these rules are in place because players, fans, and officials like their sport that way. Circular reasoning, yes, but that’s basically it. It’s not any different in swimming.
I’m an American, and IIRC they taught us the breaststroke first, except they called it the survival stroke: maybe because it sounded awesome, maybe to keep kids from giggling at the word ‘breast’; maybe our instructor was a furriner, who knows.
When I taught swimming we always taught the crawl first. This was in New England in the 70’s.
Here’s a recent article that touches on the topic of swimming underwater and the advantages it gives. The 15-meter rule for being underwater is fairly recent - it was enacted in 1988 for the backstroke, and 1998 for butterfly and freestyle. The reason was simply to force swimmers to use the event’s actual stroke.
As for why that’s important, it’s simply because these events are intended to see who is fastest within a given set of parameters and restrictions, not to see who is fastest in water. A better comparison than the 100m dash would be hurdles. If the goal of a hurdles event is to reach the finish line first, then why aren’t competitors allowed to run around the hurdles instead of jumping over them? It’s nothing more complicated than, because that isn’t the event.
Same here, early 60s, but breast stroke is just natural, nothing much to learn for the basics.
I guess I just feel that none of the Olympic pool swimming events are that interesting. Hurdles makes sense because the hurdles are the course, just as the road is the course for a cycling road race. Limiting techniques for approaching a course is a very different thing.
Aren’t all the people using “freestyle” as the name of a stroke misusing the term? My understanding is that “freestyle” races are one in which you can use any stroke, it’s just that everyone uses the crawl because it’s the fastest stroke.
High school in the late 80s, early 90s, and we were taught breast stroke and elementary backstroke first. Then I think it was sidestroke and finally the crawl. Or maybe it was crawl then sidestroke–I forget.
As far as I understand it, yes, except in the freestyle section of a medley where you have to use a stroke other than the ones already used in the medley (so no breaststroke, backstroke, or butterfly.)
Yes, freestyle is an event, and the front crawl is the actual stroke people use. But everyone knows what stroke is being referred to by “freestyle.”
And your second sentence isn’t quite correct - there are a few restrictions on the stroke. In an individual medley or team medley, you can use any stroke for the freestyle leg except backstroke, breast stroke, or butterfly. And in any freestyle event you can’t rotate onto your back.
At the high school level, you will occasionally see a swimmer using a butterfly stroke in the freestyle event. Some kids have such a fast butterfly that they can beat some of the others doing the typical front crawl.
This doesn’t explain why the one that’s actually called “freestyle” still has parameters, albeit fewer. Plus, what **Peremensoe **said:
Right, exactly. My wife raised the same point about hurdles, which led me to thinking that it would actually be kind of cool if they had a “slalom” event for swimming, like hoops that you have to swim through at various depths and angles. But yeah, running doesn’t have anything where you have to jump at certain points without there being any actual barrier causing it. If they did, it would be like the Ministry of Silly Walks or something.
There are walking events that require heel to toe movement. Why can’t they just run? The high jump has rules about the form of the jump. This is just the way sports is, there are rules. They may be stupid rules as the offside rule in soccer is, but sticking within the rules, as artificial as they may be, is part of sports.
I hope you meant that freestyle you can’t be on your back during the Individual Medley, because apart from the IM there are only a couple of rules about freestyle. The swimmer must surface before 15 meters after the start and each turn, while you can stand on the bottom at any time you may not move forward or push off the bottom, and after you come to the top of the water you can not go fully underwater except to turn.
They did make a rule change to the IM this past year, you can’t be on your back during the free turn as they consider it being backstroke. I don’t really agree with this as if you’re underwater you’re just kicking. If they are going to say that then they shouldn’t allow the dolphin kick which is used in the fly.
Are you saying you did 500m on one breath underwater? Or one breath per lap? The world record is 200m, so it can’t be the first, but assuming a lap is a standard 50m olympic pool length, you’d be underselling your accomplishment.
Swimming on one breath is pretty tough. I used to be a really good swimmer and I could hold my breath resting around 2:30, and the best I could ever do in one breath underwater was about 70m.
My guess is that olympic speed swimmers would take a new breath somewhere in the 50-60m range if there were no requirements.
:smack: Can I pretend that’s what I meant? I misread the article I linked above as applying to any freestyle event. But you’re right, rotating onto your back during a turn (or any time) is disallowed in the freestyle portion of a medley, but is allowed in a freestyle race.
As for hurdles, my understanding is that runners are permitted to run through them and knock them over. They choose to leap over them because that’s faster.