Am I alone in pursuing freestyle only?
I never understood/appreciated anything other than "swim as fast as you can from A to B".
I was a long time hard-core runner, and the different swimstrokes seems to me to be akin to running backwards or sideways. (Or....heaven forbid......Racewalking!!)
Why shouldn't swimming follow the same path as running? Ie No stroke rules. Just go from A to B in the water anyway you wish? As fast as you can.
School me! Kick my ass! In my newbieness I cannot understand anything other than "A to B in the water as fast as you can."
Why do we have these 4 different strokes? It seems like a beauty contest. (I expect to be crucified for such blasphemy.)
Educate me, USMS people. Help me understand why you would want to find a way to swim slower!! :)
My understanding is that in Europe historically swim races were done exclusively doing breaststroke. Front crawl/Trudgen style was brought to Europe in the 1800s and was much faster. This made breaststrokers upset so they started doing freestyle and breaststroke events separately. In the late 1920s someone realized since the pull requirement in the rules of breaststroke only required symmetric arms it was faster to do a butterfly pull. This again made the breaststrokers upset so in 1952 they made a distinction between fly and breaststroke.
So breaststrokers are mostly to blame for having to swim so many strokes. I'm not sure about how backstroke races came about although they came to the Olympics in 1900 vs 1904 for breaststroke.
My understanding is that in Europe historically swim races were done exclusively doing breaststroke. Front crawl/Trudgen style was brought to Europe in the 1800s and was much faster. This made breaststrokers upset so they started doing freestyle and breaststroke events separately. In the late 1920s someone realized since the pull requirement in the rules of breaststroke only required symmetric arms it was faster to do a butterfly pull. This again made the breaststrokers upset so in 1952 they made a distinction between fly and breaststroke.
So breaststrokers are mostly to blame for having to swim so many strokes. I'm not sure about how backstroke races came about although they came to the Olympics in 1900 vs 1904 for breaststroke.
