Swimming at the Summer Olympic Games 2020

[NearPup 3,200]

Really sad that Andrew won a gold medal.

[OlympicsFan 860]

  On 8/1/2021 at 2:46 AM, Vektor said:

Just to elaborate, this is probably a controversial opinion, but I would throw men's/women's 50, 400, 1500 free all out, have the 100 as the only sprint event, and have 800 as the standard long distance event. We got the open water anyway for those who find 800 too short. I would also leave the mix relay out for obvious reasons. 28 gold medals in the pool, sounds about right. 

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I don't agree about throwing out the 400 free, also pretty absurd take to have 2 butterfly/IM events and only 3 individual freestyle events, despite the freestyle being far more competitive and popular, but for a hungarian this take isn't too surprising.

 

My program for individual events would be:

100/200/400/1500 free, 100/200 back/fly/breast, 200/400 IM

 

Not sure what to do with the relays, i think i would have the 4x100 free relays and a mixed medley relay. The longer the distance, the bigger the gaps and therefore the less interesting the relays. The 4x200 free relays usually have 4 medals contenders at best. It is pretty much the same with the 4x400 m relays in athletics.

[Federer91 2,890]

Another Phelps world record broken  This was finally the proper US swimming from past Olympics. 

[Federer91 2,890]

  On 8/1/2021 at 2:46 AM, heywoodu said:

Theoretically?

 

We could do with one breaststroke, one backstroke and one butterfly event, for starters.

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As few as they are, there are still some specialists that only do 200 m. I think, if we are cutting it should be freestyle. 

[rajiv 31]

  On 8/1/2021 at 2:35 AM, Vektor said:

That's pretty much the main argument against swimming having so many events. I would be in favor of cutting down freestyle events, but that will obviously never ever happen because they just added two more. 

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I'd be in favour of only having only one specialty stroke event  ( the longer one -200m for the novelty strokes and 400m for IM )

Freestyle is to swimming as straight running events are  to athletics 

All the other events are really novelty events . Races are about who is the fastest over a certain distance . Not about who is fastest with one hand tied behind your back 

[George_D 1,206]

Australia finished with 9 gold-3 silver-8 bronze medals (20 in total). A significant improvement comparing with the last Olympics in Rio. This is their best olympic performance ever in terms of both gold and total medals

[Federer91 2,890]

This Finke guy ruined my prediction of the US not passing 10 golds  They saved face by the end, it won't be a total disaster.

[Vektor 3,326]

  On 8/1/2021 at 2:54 AM, OlympicsFan said:

I don't agree about throwing out the 400 free, also pretty absurd take to have 2 butterfly/IM events and only 3 individual freestyle events, despite the freestyle being far more competitive and popular, but for a hungarian this take isn't too surprising.

 

My program for individual events would be:

100/200/400/1500 free, 100/200 back/fly/breast, 200/400 IM

 

Not sure what to do with the relays, i think i would have the 4x100 free relays and a mixed medley relay. The longer the distance, the bigger the gaps and therefore the less interesting the relays. The 4x200 free relays usually have 4 medals contenders at best. It is pretty much the same with the 4x400 m relays in athletics.

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Who cares about the popularity of the events when a swimmer can realistically win all of 200, 400, 800, 1500 just by being a great mid and long distance free swimmer? A sweep of more than 2 individual events should only be possible when someone is good in more than one swimming styles, or somehow they can win 100, 200/400, 800/1500 events. Obviously we need a second fly event because otherwise either sprinters or mid distance swimmer won't get a good opportunity in that swimming style, at that point it would more fair just to throw butterfly out of the program. 

[heywoodu 15,335]

  On 8/1/2021 at 2:59 AM, Federer91 said:

As few as they are, there are still some specialists that only do 200 m. I think, if we are cutting it should be freestyle. 

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Every event has a few specialists at least, but that doesn't mean it's really different enough to warrant such a huge number of realistically available medals per swimmer.

[OlympicsFan 860]

  On 8/1/2021 at 3:04 AM, George_D said:

Australia finished with 9 gold-3 silver-8 bronze medals (20 in total). A significant improvement comparing with the last Olympics in Rio. This is their best olympic performance ever in terms of both gold and total medals

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Completely crazy that in swimming alone they almost won enough golds to finish top 10 in the medal table, again shows that there are clearly too many events. One sport shouldn't be enough to finish top 10 in the medal table, same is true for judo/wrestling/cross-country skiing/speed skating.