World Aquatics has released its updated competition regulations. While there are many, many minor changes to processes and procedures, there was one rule that caught some attention.
World Aquatics will now treat the 400 meter freestyle, which is eight lengths or four laps in a long course Olympic-sized pool, the same as it treats longer races like the 800 and 1500 meter freestyles when it comes to counting.
Swimmers in the 400 meter free will now have lap counters and a bell or whistle before the final lap. Since 2015, World Aquatics has used electronic counters on the pool floor instead of hand held boards.
While elites eventually race enough to have a certain rhythm in their head that makes counters unnecessary in the 400 free, some of the biggest names in swimming have made errors. At the 2021 European Short Course Championships, Romanian star David Popovici stopped at the 350 meter mark of prelims in the 400 free before realizing his error and finishing the race. He was leading his heat, and while his 3:15.61 split at the 350 mark meant he would have needed a really good final 50 to make the final anyway, a 32.59 on the last lap sank any chance.
The current World Record holder Lukas Maertens touched early at his first German Junior Championships race in Berlin when he was only 11 years old in the 400 free in long course. An official would alert him to his error and he would swim the last lap.
Maertens, now 24, says that he feels more confident in his intuition to count a race now, however.
“But I’ve swum that distance so often now that I wouldn’t need that assistance,” he told the German Swimming Federation of the changes. “These days, I can probably even predict my exact time. Whether it’s 3:40, 3:45, or 3:50 – I can feel it now.”
Maertens set the world record last year in Stockholm with a time of 3:39.96 minutes.
Other Rules Updates
- Mirroring the recent changes in backstroke races, rules have been updated allowing athletes to resubmerge in the final 5 meters of freestyle and butterfly races as well. While not necessarily a practical strategy for speed, the rule was designed to eliminate disqualifications for a swimmer who completely submerges while lunging for the wall at the finish of a race.
- Sponsor logos measuring up to 30 centimeters square will now be allowed in swimming and open water swimming World Cup events.
We are losing our numeric ability. Hopefully we don’t have to do bells for the 200.
About 46 years too late for Peter Szmidt! IYKYK…
People can’t count to eight?
Unbelieveable.
Some of the responses in this thread are pathetic.
I’m great at math. (Air Navigation requires that.) I think I’m smart. And in the hundreds of 400m I have done over the 7 years of my swimlife, yes, I have sometimes, on occasion, doubted which lap I was on.
Now, if you (and a few others here) are so perfect that this never happened to you, then congrats. Keep making fun.
But it’s pathetic.
it has nothing to do with math
Counting is not math. Ok.
I think I know where YOU will go with this….
I wish they had a display at the bottom of the pool that would display subway surfers gameplay for those doing the 1500
I miscounted my 2 IM LC one time …That was wild 🤪
Seems to me that keeping track of your own laps in a 400 ought to be part of the event. Screw that up and it’s on you.
I would say no counters for long course 400 free but allow them for 400 free short course meters (in the US we allow counters for the 500yds free). I know that 20 laps are more than 16 laps, but we allow for counters in other events that are 16 laps, ex. 800 free long course.
To me, I wouldn’t want to add the dip in the water counters.
But I think adding the 400 to the lap counters at a World Championship meet where you already have the display at the bottom of the pool anyway would be no big deal. Hell, add it for every race.
The best sound in the world is the bell.
World Aquatics will now treat the 400 meter freestyle, which is eight lengths or four laps in a long course Olympic-sized pool […]
I’m confused by this sentence. I definitely need a lap counter now.
Agree . How is that 4 laps?
a lap only occurs when you end up where you started. Ever watched track before?
I asked my high school age daughter at the time, where would you like me to place the counter during a 500? She laughed and said “anywhere you want just make sure it’s out of the water when I’m inside the flags.”
Worst is the lap counter who want to dunk it on every lap, nothing worse than seeing 1… 3… as a reminder how much futher you need to go.
Interesting take. We prefer it to be pulled out of the water when we begin our flipturns.