We can pretend we didn’t see it, just like we can pretend we don’t see you pulling on the lane line in backstroke. 
Two relevant questions: why is backstroke so much slower than front crawl? It seems like the mechanics of the two are pretty similar.
Secondly, has anyone ever seriously tried to develop what I call a ‘corkscrew’ stroke? That is, start with front crawl but rotate your body about its longest axis through the water as you go, so you sort of constantly alternate between front crawl and backstroke. I assume any marginal benefit of the corkscrew effect is more than outweighed by the relative inefficiency of backstroke, and the extra energy you expend on the rotation not being translated into forward momentum.
You don’t get your hands as deep in the water for backstroke like you do for crawl. If you watch they are more pushing their arms along their sides in back. I don’t believe you rotate as much on back as one does in a crawl stroke. Butterfly is actually the fastest stroke, but only during the pull, the recovery slows you down making it slower then crawl.
I’ve tried a corkscrew type of stroke before. All it does is make you dizzy as hell. I can’t imagine any improvement gained for spinning.
I’m waiting to see if anyone tries a flip turn in the fly or breast. It would be legal if they touched the wall fist and then flipped. I’m too old and non-flexable to be able to do it, though I have tried it a time or two.
That’s fine, but first of all I don’t think anyone knows who the winners of those events are, yet Usain Bolt is famous. And secondly, that’s fine if they want to have all these different versions of everything, but why don’t they *also *have an event that’s just “swim as fast as you can”?
Seconding what some of you have said, the underwater limitations have been enacted to force the swimmer to perform the actual stroke. Swimming underwater is easier and faster, true, but then the event devolves into a contest of who can hold their breath longer, rather than who can perform the stroke the quickest.
I think they should have the swim as fast as you can event. You have a valid argument. There are a lot of events I find of questionable value when this one seems obviously needed.
Cool.
On the one hand, I agree with you entirely.
On the other hand, I want to believe you’re Ryan Lochte: glaring at Michael Phelps and furiously thinking “I can totally hold my breath longer than that guy.”
I can just see the competitors getting on the blocks now, decked out in fins, hand paddles and the like. I do wonder though if having that would help that much. The dive and first few strokes might make it too slow to really help out in the end. I’ve seen a few Masters’ meets that have events like that, but I don’t think it was long enough to really determine if it would help or not.
That’s fine for events that are defined by their stroke. But there’s still room for an event that’s simply “swim a certain distance by any means you can in the shortest amount of time”.
Yes, and? Why not have that event, in addition to all the other swimming events?
Maybe, maybe not. There may be different optimal load-outs for different distances. I’d love to see it tested by best-in-the-world swimmers.
The ultimate fastest swimming style, the fish kick, is not TV friendly. Its just a guy underwater wiggling his body. It’ll probably never be added to the swimming list
Put the cameras underwater, then. And I’ll bet you’d get plenty of viewers for the women’s event.
The excitement of a race on TV is watching from a perspective where you can see all the swimmers. That’s not possible with an underwater camera - you might be able to see a couple people at a time, without a good way to see who is in the lead.
As evidenced by this thread, there are people who would enjoy watching an underwater race. But I think you’re overestimating the number who would, and I think many of the people who think it would be exciting would find the reality less so. It doesn’t sound interesting to me.
See, but, now, in the Special Olympics they usually employ the former tactic. Sporting events at the highest levels are such a graceful dance of elite biomechanics and theoretical applications…
It does to me, and besides: do people get excited about the breaststroke, or backstroke? They still hold the events. It doesn’t have to be treated as the premiere event in swimming to exist. Plus, I think part of the drama would be with people wondering how long they are going to go without coming up for air, and timing it so the last leg, they go extra long without doing so (since they don’t have to save anything) and then coming up gasping. I always find it intense when in a movie or TV show someone swims a long way underwater.
I also don’t see the problem with seeing all the swimmers. The guy in the video someone shared was easily visible, and that was not HD.
Thanks, makes sense. I agree the corkscrew makes you dizzy, but if ballet dancers and figure skaters can work around that, I’m sure swimmers could if they needed to. The fact it’s never been seen in competition is enough to convince me that the stroke isn’t as good as crawl, though.
The dancers and skaters don’t spin for 20-50+ seconds at a time though. I think the drag while spinning would be substantial as well.
I think swimming will get a bit faster by way of turns more then anything else.
I agree. This would be an awesome event.
I think they should do away with the specialty strokes in swimming as well. They seem as silly to me as race walking. When someone comes up with a better swimming stroke, then there’s a better stroke. And if the stroke is hold your breath and swim sideways under water, cool.
I mean, when Fosbury figured out how to do the high jump better, we didn’t split the event into High Jump (forward) and High Jump (flop). There’s a purity in the simplicity of establishing a goal and letting people figure out how to accomplish it.
Beautifully put. Don’t dictate the method, just the goal, and let the methods evolve.
But in Cross Country skiing they did split between skate and classic, and it has worked out pretty well.