Women’s 200m Freestyle Final
Men’s 400m Freestyle Final
Women’s 200m Individual Medley Final
Men’s 200m Butterfly Final
Men’s 4x100m Freestyle Relay Final
Women’s 50m Butterfly Final
Men’s 50m Backstroke Final
Women’s 50m Breaststroke Final
Men’s 200m Freestyle Final
Men’s 200m Backstroke Final
Women’s 100m Freestyle Final
Women’s 200m Breaststroke Final
Men’s 50m Butterfly Final
Women’s 100m Backstroke Final
Men’s 100m Breaststroke Final
Women’s 4x200m Freestyle Relay Final
Men’s 4x200m Freestyle Relay Final
Women’s 100m Butterfly Final
Men’s 100m Freestyle Final
Men’s 400m Individual Medley Final
Women’s 800m Freestyle Final
Men’s 100m Butterfly Final
Women’s 50m Freestyle Final
Men’s 50m Breaststroke Final
Women’s 200m Backstroke Final
Women’s 100m Breaststroke Final
Men’s 100m Backstroke Final
Women’s 400m Freestyle Final
Women’s 50m Backstroke Final
Men’s 200m Individual Medley Final
Women’s 4x100m Freestyle Relay Final
Men’s 50m Freestyle Final
Women’s 200m Butterfly Final
Men’s 200m Breaststroke Final
Women’s 400m Individual Medley Final
Men’s 1500m Freestyle Final
Women’s 4x100m Medley Relay Final
Men’s 4x100m Medley Relay Final
That’s 39 events for a sport that is seriously contested by 2 counties, Aus and USA.
The result is a sport that’s barely competitive - it’s dissapointing not to see some record fall in every race, including semi’s!
As for the ‘Games Medal Tallys’, how are you going to compete without a serious swimming team?
Luca,whoever you are or are well proud to be,I suggest you at least make an effort to gather some affordable information before you comment or undisclose your unasked opinion on whatever topic. Your words are absolutely incorrect in almost every sentence!
Swimming is NOT a sport “seriously contested by e countries,Aus and USA”!
Swimming is NOT a “barely competitive sport”!
Swimming training methodolgies have been evolving slowly (or at least surelyin a slower trend than many other land based sports) but steadily over the years,specifically because the complexity of human body locomotion in water environments,and its peculiar requirements.If you only research and accept what kind of evolution in training methodologies research and experiences are producing in the field of human locomotion on land even today,you can picture what kind of well wider scenario is expecting Swimming training in the next few years…
I do not know what sport or event you have background and experience in,nor what country you actually live in but-unless you come from Team Sports- I would invite you to consider the general trends of budgets and investments in different individual sports from Clubs,Organizations,national Olympic Committees etc. during the the last few years : while surely swimming cannot be considered a “rich” sport yet,surely its trends and volumes are growing at much faster rates than MOST other individual sports,and T&F is just one of them! Not bad for a “barely competitive” sport.
This site is great for the effort Charlie and most of us members have done to spread,discuss,and debate information. Let us leave laziness based MISINFORMATION out…
Your attitude towards criticism reflects the very problem within the sport of swimming.
Maybe you should take some time to examine the facts, before you question the credibility of my background, (which you know nothing about);
At the Athens 2004 Olympics, the combined medal tally of the USA (28) and AUS (15) was worth over 44% of the total swimming medals earned during the games. Next in line was Japan with 8. If we were to count only gold medals, USA and AUS won 59% of all the gold medals on offer.
Compare this to Track & Field;
The top 2 medal winners, the USA and Russia, won a combined total of 45 medals - less than 33% of the total number of medals on offer. USA & RUS won only 30% of the track and field gold medals.
20 countries won atleast 1 swimming medal at the games out of a total of 97 swimming medals on offer.
40 countries won atleast 1 track and field medal at the games out of a total of 138 medals on offer.
So which part of what I originally said was incorrect? Let alone “in every sentence”?
If you could kindly point out the statements that I made that were “misinformation based on laziness”?
swimming needs more resources, and is more technical if we want to say so…but to state that is seriously contended by us and aus…they are super powers yes, but germany?( THE female superpower of recent past,)italy?uk?poland , russia?south africa?japan?(great breaststrokers…)neederland?brasil?..these are super teams, but world and olympic champion recently have come from many more countries…like croatia, hungary, even puertorico , spain, canada, finland, france…I think it’s the most spreadout sport except for track & field…
I was just thinking about this question. I don’t follow swimming that closely but i was thinking about the differences between it and land events especially with respect to the physiology of the competitors.
Now I really don’t know if this generalisation holds but from doing pool work with my sprinters (the majority of whom are of african/carabean origin) and from personal experience of my friends while i was growing up it appears that if you are of african origin you cannot stay boyant anywhere near as easily as caucasian/asian counterparts. If this is true it effectivly means that the majority of the african countries who do so well at other power events simply cannot compete because of physiology. Therefore, the number of countries that can compete is less so the medals are bound to come from less countries? Is this observation anywhere near correct?
As for the budget etc… in GB we have less funding in athletics than either swimming or cycling as we are continuously being made aware of! Plus I’d say the swimmers seem to know more about what they are doing than we do…
Doesn’t this last statement contradict the rest of your post?
Obviously, this conclusion is not lost on international federations, though political upheavals have altered the landscape in swimming in recent times (end of East Germany and the collapse of programs in the East block in general.) I’d keep an eye on the future. China will prob lie low till the Beijing Olympics- then watch out!!
I see a lot less white people tearing up the track as well…
I too have noticed this, but I think it goes in general for most true power/speed athletes who has plenty of muscle mass and are ripped. I know I cannot swim for a damn and sink and most of my athletic friends are the same way (including non-black friends). I won’t drown, but I am far from being respectable in the pool.
I wonder why China is going to lie low lol.
Does anybody know what is up with so many events in swimming and why the athletes can often triple (and more) easily?
Sprints make up 75% of the swim program. That’s why the Aussies decided to put a bigger emphasis on developing their women sprinters who have been poor almost since Dawn Fraser dominated the 100 freestyle through to Tokyo Olympics in 1964.
They had nothing much in the way of female sprinters until around the time of the last Commonwealth Games in 2002 and since then they’ve reaped rewards in the pool.
At the last swimming world championships, wherever they may have been, the Aussie women won the gold medal in all four strokes at 50m (freestyle, breaststroke, backstroke, fly).
Anyway what I was told was that they - or rather their coaches - have finally understood from working with track coaches is that Force Production Is A Neuro-Muscular Function.
So they diverted from endless, mindless aerobic mileage and started to develop some power. Of course there is still some aerobic mileage in there otherwise they tend to lose what swimmer’s call “their feel” or “their grip” of the water.
I would say definitly. When we were kids my friend Lenny and me would play a game where we’d tread water and then count to 3 and stop. We’d then see who sank to the bottom quickest. Lenny always fell like a stone. His nickname was Lenny “the brick” and during lifeguard training everyone would avoid partnering him because when you were towing him he’d constantly sink on you! Just as genetics play a part in the sprinks so they do in swimming… I assume it must be more dense bone and muscle… that or thier lungs are smaller! How many people of african origin make the final of world swimming events? How many white athletes have ever run under 10seconds?
I am sure something similar has been discussed in the forum before (re: culture being one factor, etc). Without discarding your point, I believe it’s more complicated than that.
Perhaps someone whose job is in the pool can comment here, as my experience in there is minimal… Pakewi?
You are most probably right. Just as I am not questioning your background which I do not know,nor I am interested in,but the ultimate objective of your observation.
Don’t forget the triples and more in swimming. There are athletes earning 4+ medals w/o question when, in track, triples are extremely tough even when on relays (you almost never see a triple individual in track).
Its definitly more complex as you point out but still any country that has a population where say 95% of the people are genetically suboptimal for a specific event are unlikely to be competative. And take into account the fact that half of the worlds population may be affected by this and you can see how there is likely to be some countries winning a greater percentage of medals based purely on statistics… My friend Lenny was far more athletic than me as shown when he’d kick my ass on the track but in the pool he was fighting a loosing battle regardless of how much he practiced.
