Scholarship table
Are they also doing this naked?
I think the more appropriate analogy would be races where you have to run backwards, or side shuffle, or some slower gait. Which of course we have in the form of race walking, which how this is an Olympic sport is something I don't get.
Billy/Chico’s, you missed a generation. Maybe you’ll catch up on the next Summit. So sad.
I disagree with this. Different strokes are completely different feats of athleticism. That is like asking why there is both bobsledding and Luge, ice dancing and mixed skating, downhill/slalom/super G, greco-roman wrestling/Judo/freestyle wrestling, rowing with coxwains and without, artistic and rhythmic gymnastics, etc etc. The only thing the various strokes have in common is that they are a race in the water.
Why have any Olympic events other than swimming, running, and wrestling?Athletic ability in its purest form. No teams, no equipment.
But what is the point? Why backstroke and not side stroke? Why not a dog paddle race? What the hell is the butterfly for? A race should be to get from point A to point B as fast as you can, not with artificial limitations on how you can get there.The skiing stuff you mention is still get from point A to point B as fast as you can, you just have to negotiate different types of courses. You have a point with wrestling. Gymnastics and rhythmic gymnastics are all different events (and aren't sports anyway since they are judged. The Olympic motto is "higher farther faster", not "with more grace and aplomb in the eyes of a majority of judges". Track and Field different races are just lengths and/or obstacles (hurdles, steeplechase). Swimming is the same venue the same conditions. Doesn't make sense to me.
Butterfly evolved out of the breaststroke. The original rules of breaststroke said that the arms had to move in unison, as well as the legs. A guy in Australia invented the butterfly technique, which technically did not break the rules, but was way faster. They decided to make it a separate stroke.Also, if you want to do the sidestroke or dog paddle, you are welcome to do so in the freestyle events. "Freestyle" literally means that you can do whatever stroke you want. Most competitors choose to do what is otherwise known as the Front Crawl.
That doesn't address any of my point. The butterfly still doesn't make any sense. If they fixed the rule so you can't use that stroke in the breast stroke, why did they need to create another event that forces you to use it? Also, you can use the breast stroke or the back stroke or the butterfly in freestyle, too, so that is not an argument to not create separate races for the dog paddle or side stroke.A race is a race. You should use the best non-mechanical (like using a car in a running race) method to get from point A to point B.The original Olympic swimming race they brought everybody out on a boat and the first guy to shore won.
I may be reading into it, but I'm beginning to think that you don't "get" why there are different swimming events other than freestyle.
my wife was a high-level butterfly swimmer and was going to try for Rio 2016 for her homeland until circumstances ended that dream (and my dream of being in the Olympic Village for a week). It is a messed up stoke and takes a ridiculous amount of skill to do it.
I hate doing it, even though it has been my most competitive stroke.Seeing how far you can go without losing your form is a great measure of how in shape you are swimming-wise. A few years ago when I was actively training in Master's, I could go 200+ yards. Today, I could probably eke out a 25.If your wife still swims, she should consider competing in Masters. It doesn't take much to be nationally ranked in butterfly because no one wants to do it.
I swam a bit, and butterfly does not feel like the same sport as freestyle. It's like the snatch vs. clean & jerk in Olympic lifting --> both will get the bar over your head but they're not the same event at all.
I don't get people who can't swim. ... I can't swim
big fan of both, tbh. don't get all that powder though.
Not trying to be rude but I genuinely don't know what you mean by this. You agree? I hit it on the nose?