2022 Duel In The Pool: Day 2 Event Primer

2022 DUEL IN THE POOL

• Friday, August 19 – Sunday, August 21, 2022
• Sydney, Australia
• Sydney Olympic Park Aquatic Centre (pool swimming, Aug. 20-21)
• Bondi Beach (open water, Aug. 19)
• Start Times
  • Friday – Open Water: 9:00 am local / 7:00 pm ET on Thursday
  • Saturday – 7:00 pm local / 5:00 am ET
  • Sunday – 7:00 pm local / 5:00 am ET
• LCM (50m)
• Meet Central
• How to Watch

The 2022 Duel In The Pool got underway on Friday, August 19, in Sydney, Australia. The first event to take place was the 4×800 freestyle open water race. Australia won event 1 as Chelsea Gubecka, Kareena Lee, Kai Edwards, and Kyle Lee out-swam the American team of Charlie Clark, David Johnston, Bella Sims, and Tylor Mathieu.

Relay victories at Duel In The Pool are worth 8 points and second place is worth 6 points, meaning that the score is 8-6 for Australia heading into day 2. Day 2 and day 3 will feature the pool events with 20 events on Saturday and 19 on Sunday. For a full schedule breakdown and an explanation of the scoring, check out this article we published yesterday. And to find out how to stream the meet, click here.

The meet will feature a mixture of events that swim fans are used to seeing and some that we aren’t. If you’ve looked at the event schedule with bewilderment, worry not! This primer has been designed to bring any swim fan up to speed with how each event on day 2 of the meet will go down (stay tuned for the day 3 primer). There are 20 events on day two, each fitting into one of six categories identified below.

Traditional Events

• Traditional Events on Day 2: Mixed 4×100 Medley Relay, Men’s 100 Butterfly, Mixed Class 4×50 Freestyle Relay, Men’s 100 Breaststroke, Women’s 50 Freestyle, Men’s 100 Freestyle, Mixed Class 100 Freestyle, Women’s 100 Backstroke, Women’s 200 Freestyle

This category is easy. These are all events that you’ve seen contested at the Olympic and Paralympic Games as well as your local age group meet (except for the 4×50 mixed class relay).

Day 2 will begin with a mixed medley relay wherein both teams will enter 4 swimmers (2 men and 2 women) to race the 4×100 mixed medley relay. The other relay is the mixed class 4×50 freestyle where all 4 para swimmers on each team will compete. For both relays, the winning team gets 8 points and second place gets 6.

There will also be 7 individual traditional races that will feature 2 swimmers from each team where first place will be awarded 4 points, 2nd place 3, 3rd place 2, and 4th place 1.

Broken Events

• Broken Events on Day 2: Women’s Broken 400 Freestyle, Men’s Broken 800 Freestyle

The second category is not too hard to understand either. Just like the traditional events, 2 swimmers from each team will race both of these events – a 400 for the women and an 800 for the men, which will feature breaks for all swimmers at certain intervals.

In the broken 400, each swimmer will dive in and race 200 meters. 3 minutes after the race began, they will race another 100 meters, and then 2 minutes after that 100 started, they will race the final 100 meters. The broken 800 will begin with a 300 on 5 minutes, a 200 on 3 minutes, another 200 on 3 minutes, and then a 100 to end the race.

Whichever swimmer has the fastest aggregate time from all legs will get 4 points, the second-fastest will get 3 points, the third-fastest 2 points, and the slowest will get 1 point. Additionally, whenever a swimmer finishes an individual leg first, they are awarded one bonus point.

For the 400, that means the highest score possible is 7 points (4 for the overall win and 1 point for each for winning a leg), while for the 800, the ceiling is 8 points (4 for the overall win and 1 point each for winning a leg).

Mixed Class / Able-Body Relay

There is just one mixed class / able-body relay on day 2 and the event is fairly self-explanatory. Both teams will consist of 1 able-bodied female, 1 male S9 swimmer, 1 female S9 swimmer, and 1 able-bodied male, in that order. It’s not yet clear what the distance or discipline of this relay will be, but it will run like a normal 4-by-some-distance relay where the winner gets 8 points and second place gets 6.

Able-Body Skins

• Able-Body Skins Events on Day 2: Women’s Butterfly Skins, Women’s Breaststroke Skins, Men’s Backstroke Skins, Men’s Freestyle Skins

There are five skins events on day 2: four for able-bodied swimmers and one for para swimmers. The four able-bodied skins events on day 2 will consist of three entrants from both Australia and the USA and will consist of three rounds of racing.

In round one, all six swimmers will race one 50 of whichever stroke the skins race is. The 5th and 6th place finishers in round one are eliminated and score 0 points. In round two, the remaining four swimmers race again and the 3rd and 4th place finishers are eliminated, scoring 2 and 1 points, respectively. In round three, the final two swimmers will race and the victor will get 4 points while the runner-up will get 3.

Mixed Multi-Class Skins

In the multi-class skins event, all 4 para swimmers from each team will race, making it a mixed event. Like the other skins races, this race will have 3 rounds. In round one, eight swimmers will start and the 3 slowest will be eliminated. In round two the remaining 5 will race and the two slowest in that heat will be eliminated. In the third and final round, the three remaining swimmers will race.

The scoring is a bit different here because all swimmers eliminated in round one and round two will score zero points for their team. Only the three swimmers who make it to round three will score as the first place finisher will get 5 points, second place 3, and third place 2.

The other thing to note here is that the race will have staggered starts. Because it is a mixed-gender, multi-class event where swimmers can choose which stroke they will race, entrants, will start at different times in order to make the race even. For example, if a female swimmer chooses to race breaststroke, they will dive in before a male entrant who races freestyle.

How much of a lead each swimmer gets will be based on 100-stroke world records. But don’t worry, you don’t need to understand that process to enjoy watching the race!

Mystery/Random Events

• Mystery/Random Events on Day 2: Men’s Mystery 200 IM, Random Mixed 4×50 Relay

To round out our primer, we’ll now go over the two least conventional events of the day.

The men’s mystery 200 IM is almost a traditional 200 IM. The only catch is that it won’t be contested in traditional individual medley order (butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke, freestyle). Instead, the order that those four strokes will appear in the 200 will be randomly decided right before the race begins.

So it might be a 200 “IM” that goes 50 free, 50 back, 50 fly, 50 breast. Regardless of the starting stroke, swimmers will dive in to begin (yes, even if the first stroke is backstroke) and from there, it’s just a normal 200-meter race where first place is worth 4 points, second is worth 3, third is worth 2, and last is worth 1.

The “random” event on day 2 of the meet is the final race of the day: the 4×50 relay. Both countries will enter four swimmers to race the relay. The team whose captain wins a coin toss before the race will spin a wheel to determine whether the race will be freestyle or medley. So the catch is that teams need to be formulated before knowing whether they will all need to race freestyle or if it will be a medley relay. Versatile swimmers will be key here.

From there, it will be a normal relay event, either freestyle or medley where the winning team will be awarded 8 points, and the second place team 6.

Additional Scoring Features

If you’ve read this far – you now know enough to watch the first day of racing and keep up with what’s happening. If you stop reading now you won’t have any issue understanding the events as they happen, but you might be confused when you see a team get 16 points instead of 8 or if you see a 4th round of skins occur. That’s because there are a few bonus features to the scoring system that we have yet to cover.

The three additional scoring features that we’ll mention here are the power play, the double dip, and the flag frenzy.

Power Play

USA Swimming Description

• Can be used in any relay event to gain double points. Each team has one Power Play per day. This must be used prior to the start of the race. If a relay event with a Power Play is won, the team will earn double the points. If a relay event with a power play is lost (the opposing team wins), half points will be awarded.

Scenario

• The USA uses a power play on the 4×100 mixed medley relay. If the USA wins, they are awarded twice as many points as they normally would be, meaning that they would get 16 points and Australia would get 6 for their second-place finish. But if the USA loses after having used a power play, their points get halved, which would mean that Australia gets the usual 8 points for winning but the USA would get 3 instead of 6.

Double Dip

USA Swimming Description

• Can be played in any skins event to try and gain double points. If Double Dip is called, an extra 50m is contested, with double points awarded to the winner. Only one Double Dip can be played per day.

Flag Frenzy

USA Swimming Description

• Can be played in any of the 100m events to gain double points. Each team can play one Flag Frenzy per day. Flag must be thrown prior to the first swimmer hitting the 50m turn. Whoever wins an event with a Flag Frenzy will earn double points, regardless of which team throws the flag.

If you’ve made it this far in the article, you can consider yourself a day 2 Duel in the Pool 2022 expert. You’re fully equipped to keep track of which event is broken, mystery, or random, and you’ll know the difference between when a team can call a Double Dip or a Flag Frenzy.

And if you didn’t read the whole thing, that’s okay too because you’ll be able to check in tomorrow when the racing begins and follow along with the action on SwimSwam’s live recap and analysis. Racing begins at 7 PM local time or 5 AM Eastern – see you there!