Women not swimming the 1500 in the Olympics

The women's 1500m freestyle should already be in the olympics. That it isn't, is certainly an anachronism. They do compete in the Olympic 10K openwater swim and women runners do the full marathon. :confused:

While they're at it they can add a 4x50 free relay. :) Let's add a 4x100 Coed medley relay, now that would be a fun thing to watch at the Olympic level.

A mixed relay would be a lot of fun to watch and would bring lots of attention to the sport. However, I doubt the fuddy-duddies at the IOC would even consider it. Maybe some day... Maybe some day, That'd be very interesting.

By the time FINA wanted the women's 1500M and men's 800M in the Olympic program, the IOC was at a point where they felt like they had enough swim events and swimmers invited to the Olympics and didn't see the need for more swim events when they could be adding trampolining instead. (Women's water polo only really got added in the 90s in order to help get a more even gender balance at the Games) FINA has tried to get the 1500/800 and the stroke 50s added to the Olympic program for about the past three Games, but the feedback from the IOC seems to be that FINA should consider it a win that they've been allowed to add the open water 10K and synchronized diving and forget about the other pool events until 2020ish.

At this point it's purely historical. Not that that's a great reason. The swimming schedule has evolved over the years. It's high time they synchronized the men's and women's programs. While they're at it they can add a 4x50 free relay. :) On a too quick first read I thought you were advocating men's synchronized swimming ---

Same reason they have not added the 50M swim of every stroke other then free. In all truth I think the 50's being added would generate excitement about swimming (from a spectator standpoint). Everybody loves the split-second finishes, and the blazing fast pace.

I agree. I just don't find the 50s that interesting, either.

Everybody loves the split-second finishes, and the blazing fast pace.No, they don't. The 50 free is an okay race to fill time between some real swimming, but ultimately unsatisfying in a "quickie" kind of way -- they do the job, but are over so soon they leave you a bit empty and wanting more. I can understand why some unimaginative people might find the 1500 boring, but, for crying out loud, people watch multi-hour soccer games / football games / baseball games, etc. You really don't have the attention span to watch 14.5 minutes of beautiful strokes and strategy? That's lame.

I actually rather hate watching the 50s because I don't find much fun in seeing splash...splash...splash and then having to wait for the scoreboard to come up in order to find out who won rather than seeing it with the naked eye. I find the track & field 100M dash rather boring for the same reason.

Having the women and men swim the same events is the right thing to do. So add the 1500 for the women, add the 800 for men, and more 50s all around for everyone. That would add 2 additional days of swimming and lots of $$$ for the IOC and host country. The swim event are always sold out. What's the problem here? While you're at it, why not add in running events that are widely contested world-wide, but not represented at the Olympics? Other than the marathon, there are no stand-alone other off-track running events. Why not add the 5k, 10k, and the half marathon? You can probably squeeze them all into a day ;) No new events have been added to the men's track & field lineup since 1952. How many swimming events have been added since?