The DQ thread got me thinking about swimming rules I'd like to see repealed.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.
The DQ thread got me thinking about swimming rules I'd like to see repealed.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!
How they came up with 15m is beyond me...it is totally arbitrary. But, we're trying to determine who is faster utilizing different strokes. If you get rid of 15m, you might as well merge fly, back, and free...because the top athletes will only take a couple strokes per lap.
I think they should add a 50 SDK internationally for LCM. To me the most basic concept of swimming is how fast can you go from point A to point B through the water. If someone can do a 50 SDK faster than a 50 free, we're missing the whole point of swimming!
15m might make sense in LCM, but why was it transferred to SCM & SCY? If you're going to only allow a swimmer to SDK off the wall for "aways", shouldn't that distance be sort of proportional to the length of the pool?
Skip
... FINA walls, though, I'd like to see those banned. I need gutters for turns.
I like Knuckledragger's idea above ... why not flip turns for all strokes? I'm sure all the 200 flyers would much rather flip on the 7th wall ...
I think they should add a 50 SDK internationally for LCM. To me the most basic concept of swimming is how fast can you go from point A to point B through the water. If someone can do a 50 SDK faster than a 50 free, we're missing the whole point of swimming!
Agree! But have it in SCY and SCM as well.
I'd hate to go back to the bucket turn. You don't have to start with your toes in the water on backstroke anymore ...
I'd like to repeal the rule prohibiting time trials in USMS. :D
If you want to be "pure" about it, I'm game: like freestyle anything goes as long as you are on your back ALL the time, including bucket turns and underwaters past 15m. But don't pull the "I'm only a little bit pregnant" purity argument.
I am pure as the driven snow. I have pulled legs, jerky, and muscles, never a pregnancy. At least that I'd admit.
I don't care if you dive off the blocks, however, once the gun sounds be on your back till you finish.
I say that backstrokers should be able to dive off the blocks! As long as you are on your back by the time you surface, you're good.
At the very least, being able to put your toes in the gutter would be a nice concession.
....which could eventually lead to stand up starts. Those were the days.
Don't swimmers have to reprogram themselves to a certain degree for differing distances to the backstroke flags and different locations of the "T" on the bottom of the pool near the wall (at least virtually, since you seem to be "over" the "T" at different points depending on the depth of the pool)?
S
Well, the flags and the "T" are visual queues... there are no rule-specified set of flags or pool bottom markings at 15 meters (or 15 yards, if you would guess that for short course) for the underwater backstroking, flying, or reallly good breastroking swimmer to cue off of. So the underwater swimmer would have to "guess" based on SDK count for that course (meters or yards) and some appropriate factoring for how well one feels that day.
Not to say these additional visual queues couldn't be added... but for now...
