1-
One event that's purely and simply R.T. (Reaction times).
Men' and Women's, of course, with nothing but a start
off the blocks. Not even a race to the 15m mark or the 10m
mark. Just the electronic R.T. And the start would not be
influenced by a competitor thinking about SDKs, entry or
anything else. Do you think we might get to see anything
below the 0.65s (that occasionally happened in Melbourne 2007)?
2-
An 8x200 IM-Relay
Yes it seems self-contradictory but here's how I see it:
4 Women and 4 Men on each (National or Club-depending on the
event) team. Each of the eight swimmers swims a 200 I.M.
i.e., Fly (off the blocks, of course), Back, ***, Free (so the
hand-offs are always Free to Fly).
The order in which the eight team-members go, would be left to the
coaches (i.e., not W/M/W/M/W/M/W/M or any such like all Women followed by all Men) but purely strategic.
It would be interesting to follow this 1600m as the lead(s) will change,
quite a few times I surmise, during the course of those 15 plus minutes,
especially if done in a World or Olympic event.
I think you'd see the 4x200 medley relay before the 8x200 co-ed medley relay. Mixing men and women in the same race seems like a big step/change. Adding a 4x200 medley relay though would be neat though.
i would like to see the 800 im.
i would also like to see an OW team time trial (four swimmers start together, finish time is when the last swimmer crosses the line)
it would be interesting to see the same team strategies in swimming that are employed by cyclists.
Dave- there are some team cyclist strategies that I think we would just as soon not see. Oh wait, those were the actions of individual team members, not reflective of the cyclist team's high standards. Carry on then...
David, following that model, the announcer would be blithering on (in a plummy British accent) about Lance Armstrong, even though he wasn't competing...
what, no 800 IM? :)
Even though an 800 IM would be interesting, per se, in most cases you would have a "Phelps" just outracing everybody else.
When I said an 8x200 IM Relay, it's because I'd like to see how each coach would strategize this race: eight different swimmers, each doing four strokes. How would they start or finish (with which of their swimmers)? Some teams might be ahead by 50m at the 300m mark and might be finishing last (or next to) nearer the end or v.v. Do you start with the men to give your team the largest headstart possible? Or do you keep your men (supposedly faster than women, in general) for the four (or maybe only last three) anchor spots, to catch-up? But maybe team B has more fast women swimmers than fast men. I know that the expression "more fast" does not sound grammatically correct but I mean more -as in quantity- with a pause after "more" and "fast women" pronounced quickly together.
How does relay strategy really work? It's seem like it's only about peception during the course of the race. If you have four swimmers, ( swimmer A swims a 50 sec 100, swimmer B swims a 52 sec 100, swimmer C swims a 48 sec 100, swimmer D swims a 50 sec 100 ), it would seem as though no matter how you rearrange the order they should still swim a 400 in 200 sec. Is it that if your order them so that you're losing during the first half you can hope to get a better time out of your last 2 swimmers because they're trying harder to catch up? Or that if you put your faster 2 swimmers first you demoralize the opposing teams?
I believe the traditional order for a freestyle relay is 2nd fastest, 4th fastest, 3rd fastest and fastest. Of course, this is subject to the individual's starts. One could shift someone with a fast start to first if the 2nd fastest is really slow. Part of the strategy involves getting smooth water and having someone who might be able to catchup at the end.
Leo
