Why Stroke 50s Are Exactly What Modern Olympic Swimming Needs

It’s done. Finally, many will say. No one was asking for this, others might argue. Whatever the reaction, though, the die is cast: yesterday, the IOC and World Aquatics announced that the 50m butterfly, 50m backstroke, and 50m breaststroke will be part of the LA 2028 Olympic Games.

With this, swimming becomes a promoter of modern sport, accessible, exciting, and responsive, aiming to raise its own limits, starting from the ground up.

TOWARDS A POPULAR SWIMMING

FOR the people…

Traditionalists might say this change was unnecessary. The Olympic swimming schedule is already fine, why change it?

Because the world changes. Because sport changes. Because it evolves, mostly for the better, sometimes not.

In a way, if we want everything to stay the same, everything has to change.

To preserve the role of swimming in the Olympics so that it doesn’t end up being changed by time itself, it needs to become the protagonist of that change. It needs to be plastic, open to change, not artificial.

Indeed, while this new era has brought plenty of rewards, it has also come with some side effects.

One clear trend in today’s society is a shorter attention span. We go for punchy headlines, the shortest articles, we prefer watching a quick video or listening to a podcast over reading: rush is the new trend. Today’s world is fast-paced. A true swimming fan won’t mind (at least not much) watching a 1500m final. A general sports fan might stick around for the 400m freestyle. However, a casual viewer, drawn to the TV channels by the kind of excitement only the Olympics can spark, won’t be drawn to these longer races. It’ll already be an achievement if they last through the 50 seconds of a 100m race.

One lap though, just 20 seconds, that’s the length of a TikTok video. Sounds good, doesn’t it?

In a time when TikTok is the most powerful information tool, for better or worse, we must learn to harness the better. We need to shift the approach and adapt to the current era, not the past one. What seems like a weakness, the speed, can actually be a strength. On one side there’s less attention; on the other, there’s faster information, greater accessibility. It’s a chance to share performances and, along with them, the broader swimming universe, which has never really broken through to mainstream audiences until now, by exploiting a glitch in the system.

By starting from the bottom, we can lift swimming higher.

…WITH the people…

From non-swimmers to young kids dreaming about being swimmers, the desire to emulate an Olympic champion, to try to copy the motion, is both powerful and common.

How many friends or relatives, watching swimming during the Olympics, say they could sprint one lap—but struggle with two?

50 meters: one single lap, a gesture anyone can understand, and a challenge that everyone can accept.

This kind of exposure, which highlights the single lap, paradoxically elevates the sport by bringing it down to earth. To the viewer, swimming now feels closer. I could do that too.

Swimming comes down to the “lowest” levels, the levels of everyday people, but the result is that it rises, evolves, and reaches new heights.

…OF the people

Another big win in terms of accessibility now involves the athletes themselves. Adding the 50s in all strokes makes swimming a true ambassador of Olympic cultural diversity. Not every country has 50-meter pools, some don’t even have pools at all. Some train in lakes, or in the sea, or in small community pools with shorter lengths. Including these three events gives everyone, not just spectators, a more meaningful Olympic experience. It also gives value to disciplines that were previously overlooked, opening up new growth opportunities for emerging nations. These countries can now focus on more accessible events, rather than wasting effort on distances that are out of their league.

TOWARDS FASTER SWIMMING: Specialization

So far the focus was on lowering swimming to the level of the people, but now the attention shifts to how this can lead not only to a human elevation, but also to a performance elevation.

We are not talking about the speed expressed by the 50s as the shortest race. We are talking about speed as overcoming limits.

Everything changes.

Everything changes because, in the past, there was a trend to give up the 50m, or at least to overlook it, especially in view of the Olympic Games.

To those who scream about the denaturation of swimming, it is answered that, on the contrary, this decision will have the opposite effect.

Indeed, while the introduction of new events opens the possibility for many swimmers to race more, it can also lead to greater specialization.

If so far pure sprinters have had to adapt to the longer distance, thus denaturing their essence, since their own nature was not considered worthy of being declared an Olympic discipline, they can now focus on it. How many minds will now be lighter, how many swimmers have treated the corresponding 100m as a burden, a fixation that, even though it didn’t belong to them, they had to pursue? Probably, on the other hand, many others would not have discovered how far their bodies could go, opening their minds and training to other types of races.

However, it will be interesting to see how this turning point, which already places the 50m on the same level as the other races, will affect the specialists. With weights lifted, a freer mind, and a body more specialized for the distance, we may perhaps see swimmers even more ready to face this type of race.

This induced specialization could therefore actively contribute to the growth of swimming even in terms of times and performance. This turning point, perhaps, will elevate swimming once again to places no one has yet reached.