Thoughts on Olympic Swimming...

[doberbrat]

WTH to backstroke with no flags!! I would have bashed my head too!!

I'm old too - I had one of the first sets of RX goggles in S. Florida They were something like $300 and leaked like crazy. The lenses would fall out and the team would spend an hour finding clear glass lenses - but they were a necessity because I couldnt see the flags and broke a toe, a finger and got a concussion from running into the wall. I also would miss the wall doing flips.
And the 1650 was a joy to swim ..... counting 66 laps (bc I couldnt see the counters) just never worked out for me!

[georgiegirl]

As a former competitive swimmer, when did it become the thing to swim most of your race
under water?

I was just watching the 200m women's butterfly and on the final turn, Regan Smith spent a good
20 meters swimming underwater. I'm curious as to how much of the 200m she actually spent
doing the butterfly stroke.

Speaking of butterfly, I also saw a comparison of Mark Spitz and Michael Phelps and their butterfly
strokes and it was amazing. Mark's butterfly was almost painful to watch while Michael was so smooth.

I'm sure other sports have evolved over time as well but I know swimming so I notice those changes.
With other sports, not as much.

I am a USA swimming swim official (have been for 8 years), and my kids have been involved in competitive swimming for a long time.

As others have said, you can remain submerged for the 15 meters at the start and after each turn (for fly, free, and back.) that rule came into effect because of certain swimmers swimming 20-30M underwater?one of the main people was the dad of backstroke swimmer Katherine Berkoff (bronze medal!).

Science has revealed that swimming underwater (streamline with butterfly/dolphin kick) at the start and after each turn is faster than doing the stroke. Currently there is a lot of technology that allows swimmers to analyze every minute detail of their swims to improve efficiency and power. Today?s gold medal winner Kate Douglass is a statistic grad student at Virginia working on this topic!

So yes, since we?ve been adults, it?s been the trend. Races can be won with good underwaters and turns. The best swimmers are often the best underwater.

[wendibird22]

Corie, not just you. DH was commenting about the amount of time spent under water too and even said "I bet they start limiting how long they can spend under water!" Clearly we didn't know there was a 15M rule. We always watch Olympic swimming and it definitely stood out to both of us this year, with the men's races in particular, over past Olympics.