Hello! I'm a newcomer to swimming laps, and I'd like everyone's input on a debate I'm having with a friend who also swims.
What is technically a lap?
I say it's based on distance. If you're in a 25m pool - then a lap is down and back. If you are in a 50m pool - then a lap is the length of the pool one way.
He says a lap is the length of a pool.
Can someone solve this battle for us?
Thanks!
I'm with Kirk. I've always thought one length of the pool, and you lap someone when you get two lengths ahead of them. By the same token, if someone tells me they are going to swim a number of laps, I'll take the time to find out if they mean lengths or laps.
The counters for a 500 keep track of the number of lengths swam, and you only see them every time you finish a lap (aka lap counters). :bolt:
I recall during the Olympics multiple times Rowdy would state the number of laps during a race and then quickly sort of stutter and then also say the number of lengths, which was always the same number. He would say the numer of lengths for the non-swimming noodlers in the audience so as not to confuse them. Real swimmers knew what he meant before he had to clarify for the noodlers.
From the USA Swimming Website
Gun Lap "The part of a freestyle distance race (400 meters or longer) when the swimmer has two lengths plus five yards to go. The starter fires a gun shot over the lane of the lead swimmer when the swimmer is at the backstroke flags. "
If a lap is the same as a length, shouldn't the starter fire the gun from the other side of the pool?
I agree but the question posed wasn't about yards but about lap/length.
You are too close to Canada to have meaningful input. They use meters and therefore are the outcasts.
A length is a length is a length whether 25y, 25m or 50m (or at some Hotels that vaunt an Olympic-sized Pool, maybe 12.639 yds.) And yes, in Canada, we do measure things in metres (which are easier to use for bigger things, but let's NOT go there.)
:canada:
It is sheer folly to deny a difference between laps and lengths.
Length - simple, it is what it says, you go one way and finish at the opposite end of the pool. Noodles or otherwise.
Lap - you finish where you started - JUST LIKE TRACK -
However to define a swimming lap via a track lap definition, would mean that, after two lengths, one would have to come out of the wall into the water.............
:badday:
So when one is swimming a 500, and the guy in the next lane passes you around mid pool on his way back from the wall you are approaching, has he "lengthed" you? :shakeshead:
Not necessarily, but it might mean that HIS name is Michael Phelps.
Agree. One way--length. Lap--down and back.
What he said.
Besides, since almost all swim races (except the 25 yard, which is an unnatural perversion), are of an integer multiple number of two lengths, there should be a term to denote two lengths - i.e. lap.
-LBJ
