Swimming treated unfairly compared to Track & Field

...anyway, compared to Track, we as a sport, are getting jobbed!But compared to the other 30 Summer Olympic sports, swimming ROCKS! Swimming awards more Olympic medals than any other sport, including athletics (10 sports have only 1 or 2 medal events, swimming has 34). Swimming is only behind athletics in the number of members allowed on a federation’s team. We get up to 2 entrants per individual event, while many sports only get 1. I prefer to look at it that the pool is half full not half empty.:D

Jazz is still just jazzed that the big boys stole his boy-thunder in Greensboro and made his swim so hard that he threw out his arm like a loaf of moldy bread.

The gymnasts are truly amazing athletes and I have to admire that they perform these death defying feats in a noisy gym --- compared to golfers, where even the tv announcers have to whisper while some guy lines up a four footer.

Yes, I know the history of the limitation to 2 in Swimming ... I confess, I don't know the history. I know that through at least 1976 the US was able to send three athletes per event. But then we were somehow restricted to two. Who, what, when, where, why and how the change?

I wish Olympic Swimming & Diving allowed athletes 3 slots per individual event from each country. It's sad to that very deserving 3rd place finishers miss out. 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. Franklin hasn't gone PRO, she's refused a LOT of money. Prize money, National team money, bonuses, and endorsements from many potential sponsors so she can keep her amateur status to swim as an NCAA swimmer. Her choice might be a mistake. I hope not. Who's to say what her situation will be 4 years from now when she's done with her college career, she'll probably still be on top, but we never know. Some rapidly rising young star could come along. If she went pro, she could probably earn 5, 10 or maybe even 20 times more than the most most expensive 4 year college education costs. We'll see.

My peeve is with the decathlon (the winner is supposed the worlds greatest athlete because he can run/throw/jump). Let’s make it a dodecathlon and add a couple of swimming events (possibly 100 and 800 freestyle?). Heck, 12? Why not get rid of those needless field events (you could really hurt someone with all those spears, poles and bars - it's way too dangerous, and just screaming for ambulance chasers) and all that sprint-y stuff (everyone knows sprinters other than Leslie are just whiny layabouts), then toss in a nice long bike ride so you can see the sights while you're in Merry Old England? Whittle it down to three events so nobody has to count very high (witness Connor Jaeger's 1600 yesterday - he clearly lost count). They could call it a triathlon... :D

Allen is gotten the gist of this argument right. After the US and many other western nations boycotted the 1980 Moscow Games (opinion: for a specious reason), FINA (remember, the 100+ nation body with a one nation, one vote policy) proceeded to penalize the advanced swimming nations--most of whom boycotted those 1980 games--by reducing the number of individual competitors to two per event. This was done under the umbrella of "reducing the number of competitors". The IOC follows what its member federations recommend. Thirty-two years later, this rule is still in effect. Personally, I think that an appropriate number of competitors per nation per event is three--equaling the number of medals--as long as each of the three competitors from one country achieves a high performance standard, much the way 'athletics' does. OK, this would be a compromise between maximum participation and giving smaller nations a chance, but I think that this is a feasible position. Given FINA politics, this is not feasible at all.

I'm sure she will get a free ride to swim somewhere!

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. :applaud:

My peeve is with the decathlon (the winner is supposed the worlds greatest athlete because he can run/throw/jump). Let’s make it a dodecathlon and add a couple of swimming events (possibly 100 and 800 freestyle?).