Swimming treated unfairly compared to Track & Field

1. Lochte and Franklin want attention and money, so they do a lot of events, so Rowdy Gaines can scream about how tough they are on national television. 2. Swimming has way too many events. For example, there is a swimming-backwards competition at the Olympic level, at two different distances. There is not a running-backwards competition, so they have more slots in the running competition, or as event-overloaded swimmers would call it, "freestyle." Track has running,running over hurdles,running over hurdles and a water jump,throwing weights,throwing weights with chains,throwing javelins,throwing discus,high jump,long jump,triple jump,pole vault etc.That is many more esoteric practices than swimming. In a reasonable world there would be time standards to make the olympics and if you make it,you make it.If the entire finals of the100m free is Australian,so be it.Let the best compete and get politics out of it.

The politically correct term for Track and Field is "Athletics". Hard to find T&F mentioned at the Olympic site where it always referred to as athletics. Of course it's business related, but at least swimming is growing world-wide, and will be even more popular in a month.:) But I have to say some of the sprint track is spectacular to view too.

But the political side. Yuck. When it comes to the actual competition, I think it is pretty apolitical. And I really like it the way it is. I think the point was that in the Olympics we artificially layer national (political) boundaries onto the competitive aspects of sport. If the eight best 100m sprinters in the world are Jamaican, why shouldn't they all get to compete? I realize that is not going to change, but I can certainly see the logic in eliminating the artificial national boundaries from the qualification process.

I have to admit--and I'm a huge fan of "athletics" or "track and field"--that I was curious as to why the first three made the team in t and f events, but only two in the swim events. I think in ice skating too it's the first two in each category, but I'm less sure of that. It's not something I'm losing sleep over, just wondering about it.

And furthermore, I am tired of track moaning about their workloads in a meet; they should watch Lochte and Franklin to learn what a real quick turnaround is, and how to handle it gracefully.

1. Lochte and Franklin want attention and money, so they do a lot of events, so Rowdy Gaines can scream about how tough they are on national television. 2. Swimming has way too many events. For example, there is a swimming-backwards competition at the Olympic level, at two different distances. There is not a running-backwards competition, so they have more slots in the running competition, or as event-overloaded swimmers would call it, "freestyle."

Jazzman: I have the answer to your 'swimming backwards' crack...from the Ministry of Silly Walks track gives us race-walking...uh huh... Besides, I'm not talking about adding events, anyway.

Track has running,running over hurdles,running over hurdles and a water jump,throwing weights,throwing weights with chains,throwing javelins,throwing discus,high jump,long jump,triple jump,pole vault etc.That is many more esoteric practices than swimming. In a reasonable world there would be time standards to make the olympics and if you make it,you make it.If the entire finals of the100m free is Australian,so be it.Let the best compete and get politics out of it. I pretty much disagree with everything you wrote. Track and field has way fewer multiple event champions. When it comes to the throws, I don't think there is anyone who completes in two. But the political side. Yuck. When it comes to the actual competition, I think it is pretty apolitical. And I really like it the way it is.

Then there is Gymnastics where you can do well & win events and the Queen & her henchwomen Like I told my wife today: for gymnastics to compare with swimming, Phelps and Lochte would need to jump out of the pool after every 50 in the IM and do a little "I'm about to switch strokes" dance. And a judge would subtract .1 to .3 from their final time based on this performance. Seriously, though... while those women are obviously amazing athletes - they have abs like bodybuilders and I swear I saw one do a no-foot pushup while balancing on the bars - the drama and theater and makeup, IMO, really undermine the amount of training they do. I can't watch it without going all MST3K on it, and then I feel bad because I know they work harder every day than I do all week. I'll take a straight-up race for time any day. /sidetrack

This is my understanding of what happened.In 1976 the E Germans totally dominated the women's side and the US men were even more dominant so in 1980 it was voted to decrease the number from each country.Since the US was boycotting the Olympics that year(worst decision ever) we had even less influence than normally and it passed.