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Comment by MengerSponge | Hacker News Reader

(2015 article)

I get that it's a quirk of the sport's history, but it's funny and dumb that swimming awards medals and records for being the fastest at a slower stroke. It's like if track meets would have a 100m sprint, a 100m skip, and a 100m run-backwards.

If I could change things in the world, I wouldn't eliminate the extraneous strokes in swimming, but I would include additional competitions in all the track distances: backwards running, handstand walk, and one-legged hopping.

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Olympics have different 'strokes' used between sprint, middle distance, long distance, hurdles, steeplechase and walking races - so there is some variety in the locomotion forms unlike your strawman.

The walking race is the only one where there are specific rules. The other races just happen to mostly favor a style. Sprint finishes in long distance races are common and legal

Oh, I didn't realize there were 100m, 200m, 400m, 800m, 1500m, etc walking races.

Is the variety in locomotion in the races you listed regulated by the governing body? Like, would you be DQ'd if you skipped the last 50m of a 100m dash?

For the record, I would fully endorse a "hurdles" equivalent in swimming: put an obstacle every 10m that the swimmers have to go under. Make the lanes zig-zag.

It is annoying that rules were added to the “freestyle” race, to preclude these new better underwater forms of swimming. Freestyle ought to mean you are free to pick any style.

The rule is only on the IM; freestyle can't be butterfly, backstroke, or breaststroke.

They added a rule in 1998, you can only go 15 meters underwater after the flip. Although I guess there are safety concerns, which seems reasonable…

But why do we need this rule if front crawl is faster anyway?

IM stands for individual medley so it makes sense that they’d restrict the swimming types in that race

I think there are too many swimming events in the Olympics. If the same few people win most of the medals then maybe the events are too similar.

Please eliminate two. PS I am NOT a crackpot

I couldn’t agree more!

The jumping events do have different "strokes": long jump, (standing) broad jump, triple jump, possibly-etc. As far as I know, there is no generalized "transport yourself X distance without touching the ground" event. (Although I could be wrong.)

Swimming needs a corkscrew race!

Butterfly is my favorite. It’s so fun to fly through the water like that.

My daughter’s school had a race day to wrap up their swimming lessons, and one of the events involved rolling from front to back every second stroke. It was funny to watch but not very practical.

Sounds like burlap sack or 3-legged races. Completely impractical forms of locomotion, and irrelevant because that's not the point of the activity.

It is also my favorite, despite being the hardest due to the high skill required to do the proper technique. It is so awesome to feel so powerful.

I can't wait for you to find out there are different kinds of track competitions.

Each of the major strokes has a distinct functional example: front crawl is fastest, breaststroke lets you sight directly in front of you with each breath (which is useful in general open water), and backstroke allows you to breath uninterrupted.

It makes sense to me to have different stroke events, although I wish there was a true freestyle that allowed for anything, including underwater.

Seeing backwards running races would be impressive. Seeing the fastest human runners is also very impressive, but it’s also less interesting in a sense because they’re doing exactly what our bodies evolved to be able to do. It is interesting to see that ability pushed to its natural limits, but I think it’s a bit more interesting to see people excel in things we didn’t evolve to do: like swimming or running backwards.

> Seeing backwards running races would be impressive.

For cars, such races seem to exist (have existed?) in the Netherlands:

> Dutch Reverse Racing

> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLgPTJWAysY

These kinds of races seemed to be popular in the Netherlands because DAF (a Dutch manufacturer) produces the Variomatic transmission system

> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variomatic

"Because the system does not have separate gears, but one (continuously shifting) gear and a separate 'reverse mode' (as opposed to reverse gear), the transmission works in reverse as well, giving it the side effect that one can drive backwards as fast as forwards. As a result, in the former Dutch annual backward driving world championship, the DAFs had to be put in a separate competition because no other car could keep up."

Diagonal running!

There's at least a couple of different runs, relay and hurdles are examples of variations on pure running. And if you squint, ice skating in a lot of ways is just a different style of running (with blades on the feet). Though you might then argue that rowing is a type of swimming with oars and a boat :)

> I get that it's a quirk of the sport's history, but it's funny and dumb that swimming awards medals and records for being the fastest at a slower stroke. It's like if track meets would have a 100m sprint, a 100m skip, and a 100m run-backwards.

This is arguably what race walking is, though it's over longer distances.

1500 meter running and 1500 meter race walking are two track events with different ambulatory styles.

Well, race walking is also a thing. And, although not fully analogous, track and field has hurdles.

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