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SPECTATORS' GUIDE TO SWIMMING |
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Swimmers often talk using strange abbreviations and words that don't apply to the outside world.
Below is a simple glossary of some of these terms:
PB: Personal Best Time
Splits: The time at each 50m turn. Swimmers will monitor these to check how they paced a race.
Taper: Prior to any big competition, a swimmer will 'taper'. All this really means is that they rest. They will cut back the amount of training they do and decrease the intensity. While a swimmer may swim over 12,000 metres a day during a heavy training, they will swim as little as a few hundred metres the day before an event.
Free: Freestyle or Front Crawl
Breast: Breaststroke
Fly: Butterfly
Back: Backstroke
I.M.: Individual Medley (Butterfly, Backstroke, Breaststroke, Front Crawl). At the Olympic Games there is a 200m IM (where the swimmer will swim 50m of each stroke in the order above) and a 400m IM (100m of each stroke in order). Note that in a Medley relay, the order is changed so that backstroke is first, thus addressing the fact that backstrokers can't do a dive take over. Four swimmers complete 100m each in the following order: Backstroke, Breaststroke, Butterfly, Freestyle.
Long Course: The Olympic Games are held in long course format, which means that all the events take place in a 50m pool. Short course events are those held in a 25m pool. Short course times are faster than long course times because the swimmer completes more turns and can take advantage of the propulsion generated from pushing off the wall.
Practically all swimmers shave for a big meet. They will remove almost all their body hair but the actual purpose of doing this is to remove the top layer of skin. This increases sensitivity and 'feel' for the water. Even though a lot of swimmers wear all-over body suits, shaving remains an important psychological step in getting ready for a race.
The lane order for finals is decided from times in the heats or semi-finals. The fastest qualifier will swim in lane 4, second fastest in lane 5, third in lane 3, fourth in lane 6, fifth in lane 2, sixth in lane 7, seventh in lane 1 and eighth in lane 8. Theoretically, this creates spearhead format in the race.
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