Swimming 2021 Discussion Thread

[OlympicsFan 860]

Would be great if FINA would get rid of breaststroke, completely pointless when they don’t even try to create a level playing field. The number of dolphin kicks is the most important factor for success and FINA either doesn’t want to control it or they are too stupid to do it. Also not sure what the point is in swimming with a technique that isn’t even among the 3 fastest techniques. Why not also have a 100 m/200 m/400 m/800 m/1500 m/5000 m/10000 m track race at the Olympics where people are only allowed to run backwards? Would make about as much sense ...

[Nickyc707 382]

  On 4/30/2021 at 8:08 PM, OlympicsFan said:

Would be great if FINA would get rid of breaststroke, completely pointless when they don’t even try to create a level playing field. The number of dolphin kicks is the most important factor for success and FINA either doesn’t want to control it or they are too stupid to do it. Also not sure what the point is in swimming with a technique that isn’t even among the 3 fastest techniques. Why not also have a 100 m/200 m/400 m/800 m/1500 m/5000 m/10000 m track race at the Olympics where people are only allowed to run backwards? Would make about as much sense ...

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By that logic why keep the second and third fastest strokes either? Breastroke is a stroke that most members of the public use and can relate to. By contrast who in their right mind would use the butterfly stroke outside of a swimming competition? Personally I'm not an advocate of removing any of the four strokes but if one has to go it should be the least natural.

[Vic Liu 1,686]

Chinese Trails Day 2 Highlight

 

• Men's 400 medley Wang Shun 4:12.03
• Women's 400 medley Yu Yiting 4:37.88 Ye Shiwen 04:44.29

 

Yu Yiting got standard A after 15 min rest after 100m fly semifinal. I think she still has potential to be faster if she won't compete 100m fly in Tokyo. Ye Shiwen's apparently not in good condition. She seemed to be struggling and exhausted after finishing the match.

[OlympicsFan 860]

  On 4/30/2021 at 9:51 PM, Nickyc707 said:

By that logic why keep the second and third fastest strokes either? Breastroke is a stroke that most members of the public use and can relate to. By contrast who in their right mind would use the butterfly stroke outside of a swimming competition? Personally I'm not an advocate of removing any of the four strokes but if one has to go it should be the least natural.

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Not sure if you read my comment, but the main reason why I think that breaststroke should be removed is that it clearly isn’t a level playing field when FINA either doesn’t try to make sure that everyone only uses the allowed number of dolphin kicks or they just don’t care. Swimming and athletics are sports where decisions of individual judges shouldn’t matter, unlike in other sports like gymnastics, figure skating, boxing or ski jumping. I used the same reasoning in the past when I wanted race walking to be eliminated. In backstroke and butterfly you don’t have that Problem or at least not to that extent. I just don’t see a reason (apart from Tradition) why some sports (swimming, wrestling, canoeing) should be allowed to blow up their number of medal events by using different techniques, while most other sports don’t have that option. Why not also include compound archery for example by that logic?

[rafalgorka 1,634]

https://www.insidethegames.biz/articles/1107321/sun-yang-swimming-toyko-2020-olympics

[rafalgorka 1,634]

Looks like Polish TV will not show European Championships in swimming this year. 

 

Do you have any suggestions how I could watch it on the internet, probably using VPN? 

 

If there is nothing on YouTube, I think BBC, RAI or Hungarian TV websites may be best way to do it. We will see. 

[phelps 7,803]

  On 5/8/2021 at 11:53 AM, rafalgorka said:

Looks like Polish TV will not show European Championships in swimming this year. 

 

Do you have any suggestions how I could watch it on the internet, probably using VPN? 

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Italian Channel Raisport+ HD...they will have everything live (open water swimming included)...

 

and of course the Hungarian TV, M4 Sport...they're going to show also all the preliminaries...

[rafalgorka 1,634]

@phelpsthanks, I'll try them. 

[rajiv 31]

I'd say that you can make  a strong argument for reducing the no of swimming events in all strokes except freestyle .

The other strokes are really  a novelty -methods of swimming which aren't the fastest way from A to B - like having a hopping or skipping race -or hand walking 

but maybe that's not too different from having weight defined events in many sports -we are not looking for the best per se but the best with one hand tied behind your back or something similar 

Actually butterfly is the least credible swim stroke -unlike the other strokes it doesn't exist outside serious swimming competitions . Don't see a lot of butterfly at your local swimming spot 

And yes I know the history - invented as a clever way to game the then breaststroke rules 

But I realise that every sport wants more events and the health of every sport requires a lot of events to encourage many participants to that sport 

[OlympicsFan 860]

  On 5/8/2021 at 1:29 PM, rajiv said:

I'd say that you can make  a strong argument for reducing the no of swimming events in all strokes except freestyle .

The other strokes are really  a novelty -methods of swimming which aren't the fastest way from A to B - like having a hopping or skipping race -or hand walking 

but maybe that's not too different from having weight defined events in many sports -we are not looking for the best per se but the best with one hand tied behind your back or something similar 

Actually butterfly is the least credible swim stroke -unlike the other strokes it doesn't exist outside serious swimming competitions . Don't see a lot of butterfly at your local swimming spot 

And yes I know the history - invented as a clever way to game the then breaststroke rules 

But I realise that every sport wants more events and the health of every sport requires a lot of events to encourage many participants to that sport 

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You are right about butterfly. It is the stroke the makes the least sense. You are wrong about comparing different weight categories to different strokes. Different weight categories exist because naturally different heights exist and it would be unfair to have someone who is 170 cm fighting against someone who is 190 cm. If there wouldn’t be any weight categories, Asian countries would do much worse in fighting sports.