historical questions about the Individual Medley

not sure why but here's a thread on stroke order in IM IM Order

For developing swimmers, the butterfly is physically taxing enough that swimmers need to be fresh in order to legally complete it / without drowning. I don't know if that is the reason, but it makes sense. Did our "freestyle" events used to be "Front Crawl" events? I bet in the earliest years of the modern Olympics, the front crawl technique was not clearly superior to trudgen crawl, breaststroke, sidestroke.

not sure why but here's a thread on stroke order in IM IM Order Thanks. That's an interesting thread. I like the idea of letting the competitors choose the order--would be so much more fun to watch. :)

The Chinese Zodiac has a story for how the animals got their order. Let's make one up for how the strokes got their order. :agree:

What about dolphin kicking all the way? Does that count as a kind of stroke? I think that would count as butterfly. The USMS butterfly stroke rule is open to interpretation, I'd say. It does say "From the beginning of the first arm pull, the body shall be kept on the ***. Both arms must be brought forward over the water and pulled back simultaneously" but it doesn't specifically say that you are required to pull. The FINA rule suggests a little more strongly that you must pull: "SW 8.2 Both arms shall be brought forward together over the water and brought backward simultaneously through-out the race" I'd be interested to hear an official's take on this.

Don't the rules for IM say the fourth leg must be a stroke other than the three previous legs? So effectively you're limited to front crawl. What about dolphin kicking all the way? Does that count as a kind of stroke? I wonder why there is no dolphin kick competition?

Don't the rules for IM say the fourth leg must be a stroke other than the three previous legs? So effectively you're limited to front crawl. I suppose you could do something like sidestroke, but you couldn't use the other three competitve strokes. And, no, you can't do two-armed backstroke because that's legal backstroke. Here's the text of the rule that pertains to freestyle in IM events: 101.5.2 Stroke—In an event designated freestyle, the swimmer may swim any style, except that in a medley relay or individual medley event, freestyle means any style other than butterfly, breaststroke or backstroke So I suppose in a USA Swimming meet you could choose to do the freestyle leg as butterfrog, but not in USMS!

I appreciate having the fly first, as the diving start shortens that leg slightly.

The Chinese Zodiac has a story for how the animals got their order. Let's make one up for how the strokes got their order. :agree: Can it include a talking donkey and his BFF?

The Chinese Zodiac has a story for how the animals got their order. :agree: Interestingly, by the account of wikipedia, some versions have to do with swimming--"The cat and the rat were the worst swimmers in the animal kingdom". :)