I'm curious why the order of IM is as it is--butterfly, back, ***, then free? It doesn't seem to be the order of speed.
Also, has there been any medalist in world competitions whose "freestyle" was not front crawl (not necessarily in a medley, but maybe in just "Freestyle" competition)?
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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.
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Former Member
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.
