SwimSwam Pulse is a recurring feature tracking and analyzing the results of our periodic A3 Performance Polls. You can cast your vote in our newest poll on the SwimSwam homepage, about halfway down the page on the right side, or you can find the poll embedded at the bottom of this post.
Our most recent poll asked SwimSwam readers whether the 50s of fly, back, and breast should be added to the Olympic lineup:
RESULTS
Question: Should the non-free 50s be added to the Olympic lineup?
- Yes – 57.5%
- No – 38.5%
- Don’t know – 4.0%
More than half of voters said the non-free 50s should be added to the Olympic swimming lineup, bringing the total to 41 pool swimming events.
The current Olympic lineup has 35 events. Three of those will make their debuts next summer: the men’s 800 free, women’s 1500 free, and mixed medley relay. Those are all set to join the lineup for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, now in 2021 after the coronavirus pandemic caused a one-year postponement.
Many argue that swimming already has an inflated Olympic medal count. As a sport, swimming features 7 of the top 20 in total Olympic medals won, outpacing all other sports besides gymnastics, which also features 7 of the top 20. There are few other sports that offer athletes the chance to win as many medals in a single Olympics as swimming does, and adding a total of six more events (the 50 fly, 50 back, and 50 breast for men and for women) would further exacerbate that disparity.
On the other hand, swimming fans can’t get enough Olympic swimming, and for good reason. The Olympics remain the prestige pinnacle of the sport, and the stroke 50s are already a part of the high-level swimming format of the World Championships.
Adding more events might put a little more strain on overall roster limits. The Olympic movement has worked to lower the total number of athletes and officials at the Games in order to lower the massive burden on host cities. In fact, the last several Olympic cycles have seen potential host cities vote down their own bids due to the massive costs and hurdles associated with hosting the Olympic Games.
The IOC cut its athlete quota down by more than 500 total athletes for the 2024 Paris Olympics, and that includes a 26-person reduction in the overall number of swimmers selected across all nations.
As a whole, swimming fans probably would have preferred adding the stroke 50s to adding the mixed medley relay. But the IOC has made an effort to add more mixed-gender events as part of its roadmap to achieving gender equality. The Paris 2024 Olympics will be the first Olympics with a 50/50 split between men’s and women’s participants.
Below, vote in our new A3 Performance Poll, which asks voters to predict how many sub-58 swims we’ll see in the Olympic final of the women’s 100 back next year:
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The A3 Performance Poll is courtesy of A3 Performance, a SwimSwam partner
My idea, is have them be “exhibition events”. After all the medaling events you have the 50s. Winners receive a chunk of money either cash, or scholarship if they are a student athlete.
Unlike most here I don’t mind the mixed gender relays but how do they improve gender equality? The gender balance before and after their addition is exactly the same. Some might even say that watching Dressel mow down McKeon at Gwangju wasn’t exactly good for women’s sport.
2032 olympics: e-sports will be added at this point 🤦♂️
Why should the 50s be Olympic events:
1- Doesn’t make sense to have the 50 free, but not the 50 of the other strokes
2- It’s way more spetacular and enjoyable to watch than long distance events, and should replace the men’s 800, women’s 800 or 1500, and the 4×100 mixed relay (the least interesting race of the olympics)
3- There’s already 3 long distance events for distance swimmers (800, 1500, open waters), but only 1 sprint event for stroke specialists
4- The podium is way more unpredictable than the men’s 800 and women’s 1500 which will certainly be the same than the 1500 and 800 of the respective gender
5- Allows for a few… Read more »
Dont even get me started tryna say sprint training is harder than distance training
1 and 2 are opinions. 3 contradicts 1 because the distances you quote are all freestyle so this is inline with having only a 50 freestyle. 4 has been disproved in an article on this very website. 5. Is 50 more different from 100 than 100 from 200? Do we have data for this? 6. Peaty and Dressel both have 200s including IM to expand their medal count already if they choose to. 7. Maybe. Maybe not. Many swimmers that age seem to have run ins with the testers. 8. Sprinters defintiely work hard. It is different to distance but neither is harder. Training only gets hard when you are burnt out or not enjoying it. 9. Others have explained… Read more »
let’s remove 800free male, 1500 free female and 4x100mx mixed and put some 50m instead.. they are so much more fun to watch
no
Let’s add in 300s and 400s of each stroke while we’re at it.
finally, someone who speaks english
300 fly would separate men from boys
Maybe a 50,000??
What would be more exciting would be to add the 200 Medley Relay and the 200 Free Relay.
I feel like swimmers will understand the need for this more than the spectators. There are some people who truely struggle to perform well in a 100m or longer event. The 50s as much as they are a splash and dash require very specific and different training and talent to truely perform at the highest possible level. My guess would be that, for example, if they introduced 50 backstroke we would have a winner that we have barely ever heard of, not the Ryan Murphys or Mitch Larkins that we routinely see medaling in the longer backstroke events. And that this would happen purely because someone with more “sprinty” genetics finally has a good reason to train properly for their… Read more »
I dont think adding 50s will attract spectators. Gymnastics and Figure Skating attract a lot of spectators and their events last longer than 30 seconds.
Swimming just needs a star the general audience wants to watch that can perform at high enough level to keep winning for an extended period of time. The only example I can think of was Phelps from 2004 to 2009, and no one capitalized on showing his grand prix meets on TV, also he didn’t do many meets in Europe like Mare Nostrum which would present well on TV.
I haven’t done a 50 back since 10&U summer league. 50s are not physically demanding and have no place at the Olympic Games. Give the people what they want and add a 24 hour swim: whoever swims the farthest in 24 hours wins