The DQ thread got me thinking about swimming rules I'd like to see repealed. Here's my list:
15M rule on freestyle -- You're allowed to do virtually anything you want in a freestyle race provided you touch the walls, don't push off the bottom and don't pull on the lane lines. Why is going beyond 15 meters doing SDK not "freestyle?"
15M rule on backstroke -- Again, the rule seems arbitrary as I could go 15M underwater SDK, pop up and then kick the rest of the way still doing SDK on my back and be perfectly legal. What's so magical about 15M?
Dolphin kick off the wall on a breaststroke pullout -- just have the guts to DQ Kitajima back when he should've been DQd and this whole :worms:wouldn't have been opened.
Rollover backstroke turns -- go back to the bucket turn (touch on your back, turn, push off on your back) and you save a whole bunch of DQ hassles for swimmers & judges. Yeah, times will be way slower, but we banned tech suits, so clearly the swimming purists should be lined up behind this one.
Standup backstroke starts -- what's so magical about starting with your toes / feet in the water when we get to start with our feet out of the water on all other races? Let's stop the discrimination against backstrokers!
For the record, with the exception of #5, I would derive no speed benefit from any of the above rule changes as a competitor (I can't hold my breath in a race for 15M and my doplhin kick on the *** pullout is weak at best). As an S&T judge, though, all of these would make my life easier and, I believe (#5 possibly excepted), be more consistent with the overall rules for the strokes.
I also believe the SDK blows. I think the rules were changed soon after the 100 Back at the '88 Seoul Olympics when Berkoff was stunned by Daichi Suzuki in the final. Both of them spent all of first 50 meters underwater, then most of the next 50 meters submerged. Kind of hard to watch. Does not seem much like backstroke to me.
Not even close to the whole way UW. He went 30-35m in the first lap, and maybe 10m on the second lap (certainly not 15m). But see for yourself:
YouTube - 1988 Olympic Men's 100m Backstroke final - Daichi Suzuki
Honestly, I think he went too hard and far UW on the first lap (I realize Suzuki went just as far) and the oxygen deprivation from it cost him the win. (Well, that and his slow reaction on the start.) And the guy who went furthest underwater (Sean Murphy) wasn't even in the running for gold.
I'll say it again: I believe that if the 15m wasn't there, it wouldn't make very much difference at all in races 100 and above. Going too far or hard UW at the beginning causes a lot of pain at the end of the race. Anti-SDK people don't realize how much effort it takes either in training or in a race. It isn't free speed.
I also believe the SDK blows. I think the rules were changed soon after the 100 Back at the '88 Seoul Olympics when Berkoff was stunned by Daichi Suzuki in the final. Both of them spent all of first 50 meters underwater, then most of the next 50 meters submerged. Kind of hard to watch. Does not seem much like backstroke to me.
Not even close to the whole way UW. He went 30-35m in the first lap, and maybe 10m on the second lap (certainly not 15m). But see for yourself:
YouTube - 1988 Olympic Men's 100m Backstroke final - Daichi Suzuki
Honestly, I think he went too hard and far UW on the first lap (I realize Suzuki went just as far) and the oxygen deprivation from it cost him the win. (Well, that and his slow reaction on the start.) And the guy who went furthest underwater (Sean Murphy) wasn't even in the running for gold.
I'll say it again: I believe that if the 15m wasn't there, it wouldn't make very much difference at all in races 100 and above. Going too far or hard UW at the beginning causes a lot of pain at the end of the race. Anti-SDK people don't realize how much effort it takes either in training or in a race. It isn't free speed.
