Genuine question about swimming...

PBo
PBo Posts: 2,493
edited August 2012 in Commuting chat
I'm curious..... What is about swimming that means athletes are able to win at so many different events and distances? Unlike say track events..... If we take the top 10 gold medal winners in Olympic history, 4 are swimmers. Almost 20% of Olympians with 5 gold medals are swimmers

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  • DonDaddyD
    DonDaddyD Posts: 12,689
    edited August 2012
    I could be wrong...

    Track (assuming you mean track and field - but this answer could be applied to cycling) events require different muscles (as well as technique) to compete in the many different competitions.

    I would argue that the different swimming events require a mastery of technique, but you are mostly going to use the same developed muscles. So if a person is strong in one swimming event, assuming they can master the technique of another swimming event they should be equally good at that as well.
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  • rick_chasey
    rick_chasey Posts: 75,660
    DDD's right.

    Swimming is a lot lot more defined by technique. If you look at how swimming developed over the years and decades it's made enormous jumps - much bigger than athletics.
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  • SimonAH
    SimonAH Posts: 3,730
    Also there are a shed load of distances. It is a rare swimmer who masters more than one stroke however. The reason Phelps has been so medal dominant is that he's freestyle and butterfly - the combination of this, ples distances, plus medleys gives him an unsurpassed range of events to win medals in.
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  • TheStone
    TheStone Posts: 2,291
    It's because they make up so many unnecessary ways of swimming and give them all gold medals.

    I you had running backwards, running squats and the egg and spoon race, then add in a relay for each one and a few combined relays, you'd probably find Bolt could win 20 golds per olympics.
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  • tailwindhome
    tailwindhome Posts: 19,471
    The fact that it's non impact must have a part to play in the recovery between heats etc
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  • First.Aspect
    First.Aspect Posts: 17,465
    There are a disproportionate number of events in swimming, whereas cycling has had to cut things like the kilo (in order to accommodate the children racing around the playground event).

    Similar story with rowing - the sport has 1x, 2x, 4x, 8+, 4-, 2-* in both men's and women's hwt and lwt. So ideally it would have 24 medal events (in which people could medal :? ). In the olympics, it has 14. Swimming would have all 24.

    (*you could also have some coxed events, but I'm not wholly in favour of giving medals to people who steer - or more ideally don't steer - the German cox was 50 y/o and in her nth olympics. Is her medal really the same as the guys who do the pulling?)

    So lets summarise;
    Cycling has 18 medal events, indoors and outdoors, road, mtb and bmx
    Rowing has 14 medal events
    Sailing has 10 events (12 if you consider windsurfing)
    Swimming has no fewer than 34 medal events.

    If the IOC needs to somehow shorten the olympic programme to make room for other sports, like golf, fishing and artistic manicuring, swimming would be a good place to start.
  • OneForTheRoad
    OneForTheRoad Posts: 85
    And why not just call freestyle front crawl?
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  • First.Aspect
    First.Aspect Posts: 17,465
    Is it because they can use any stroke they want?
  • mtb-idle
    mtb-idle Posts: 2,179
    First Aspect wrote:
    Is it because they can use any stroke they want?

    correct, and they all choose to do the front crawl cos it's the quickest
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  • PBo
    PBo Posts: 2,493
    Interesting points guys, thanks.

    I'm in no way denying that phelps is a great athlete. But, yet, somehow, I can't laud him in the same way as I would Redgrave because I feel the preponderance of events somehow dilutes his achievement.

    Not that I imagine he'll lose any sleep.... :)
  • supersonic
    supersonic Posts: 82,708
    Even some swimmers themselves have said it is because of the number of events. Freestyle, butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke, medleys then combined with the distances and relays gives them a lot to have a go at.

    It is annoying that the IOC have neutered the cycling to stop GB winning so much when they could do the same for swimming.
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  • t.m.h.n.e.t
    t.m.h.n.e.t Posts: 2,265
    supersonic wrote:
    Even some swimmers themselves have said it is because of the number of events. Freestyle, butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke, medleys then combined with the distances and relays gives them a lot to have a go at.

    It is annoying that the IOC have neutered the cycling to stop GB winning so much when they could do the same for swimming.
    Except they'd need to change something to help GB win in swimming. Bring suits back and there may well be a rise in medal finishes.

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