Over the pass summers

Throughout each summer since I was 5 years old I have swam with the Lindsborg WaveMakers Swim Team. One of my favorite events to swim in swim meets is the 100 free. This event can involve any stroke. You have to do at least one length of freestyle. After you do one length, you can do whatever stroke you want to do or you can continue swimming freestyle. This is one of the easiest events to swim. You don’t have to go fast in this event, but you have to pace yourself so that you have some kick left for the final lap. This past summer when league came around I got really nervous because I was swimming in all six of my events. I was scared! When it came time for the 100 free I was freaking out. I was in the fastest heat, in the 3^rd fastest lane. The event started and I was swimming my heart out. I ended up getting 2^nd by a millisecond. 

 Below is a link to the team I swim for over the summer.

http://www.ks-usa.net/lindsborgcommunity/swim_team/index.htm

Michael Phelps

This video shows Michael Phelps swimming the 400M Individual Medley in the Beijing 2008 Summer Olympic Game. This is how 400M Individual Medley is raced. 

Individual medley

The individual medley is also called the IM. In this event you must swim all four strokes like the medley relay, but the order of strokes is different. You start with butterfly, followed by backstroke, then breaststroke, and ending with freestyle.  This is one of the most competitive events swimmers compete in. This event can be distances of 100, 200, or 400 meters or yards, depending on the size of the pool.

Medley relay..

In order for meets to be even more exciting you need to have some type of fun event that involves more than one person swimming. This event would be the medley relay, which involves four swimmers.  This event involves all four strokes. The race starts with backstroke, then breaststroke, followed by butterfly and ending with freestyle. The first person comes off the blocks doing backstroke. Once they touch the wall the next person goes with the next stroke. This relay can be swum where all the swimmers swim either 25, 50, or 100 yards or meters.

All about Butterfly

Butterfly is similar to the breastroke. According to the webpage “Swimming” German E. Rademacher could have invented the butterfly technique.  This stroke involves many rules and you can get a DQ (disqualification) really fast if you don’t follow the rules. The leg and arm stroke have to happen together. The legs in this stroke are doing dolphin kicks and must kick in simultaneous motion. The arms move like a butterfly going backwards and forwards. One of the main reasons many people get DQ’s in this event is because they don’t two hand touch the wall at the same time. In the same way breastroke is very similar to the butterfly.

Backstroke

Backstroke is a stroke where you swim on your back, hence the name backstroke! In the olden days backstroke was swam using a frog kick, also known as the scissor kick. Now backstroke is like the freestyle, but on your back. According the webpage “Competitive Swimming” backstroke is not a symmetry stroke. All you have to do is lay on your back to perform the event. You flutter kick your legs and your arms go behind your head. You must start in the water for this event.    

Some pointers on freestyle.

       Freestyle came from Richard Cavill. It is also known as the front crawl or Australian crawl. To swim the freestyle you swim on your stomach and flutter kick. Your hands move forward like you are crawling.  For this event you can start on the blocks, on the ledge, or in the water.

Some history on swimming

Swimming started in the early 1800’s in Europe. Around 1837, there were already swim meets being held in London weekly. There were six pools in the city. As the sport grew more pools were being built. According to the webpage, “History of the Sport”, competitive swimming was a very popular sport by 1844. The favorite of the strokes was the breaststroke.