Unraveling the Four Strokes of Competitive Swimming

As we all know, swimming is a sport in the Olympics. As for the school, SMIC finally formed a swimming team last year to compete in swim meets with other international schools. Many of our students had won a medal but other students may not know this sport. Swimming is a sport that interacts with the water. There are four strokes in total: freestyle, backstroke, breaststroke, and butterfly.

Freestyle

Freestyle, also known as the crawl is the fastest stroke. The rule is that the swimmer cannot push off the bottom of the pool or pull the lane line and must touch the wall with their hands. Freestyle is swum face down, side breathing, and up and down kicks. When the swimmer reaches the wall, they can choose to do the open turn or a flip turn. For a flip turn, the swimmer flips and kicks the wall. For an open turn, the swimmer touches the wall with one hand and turns. At the finish, the swimmer must touch the wall with one hand.

Backstroke

Backstroke, also known as the upside-down freestyle is the same as freestyle but facing the sky. When the swimmer turns their shoulders more than 90 degrees, they are disqualified. The other exception is that when they do a flip turn, they may turn onto their stomachs for one arm pull, but when their feet leave the wall, swimmers must be on their backs. At the finish, the swimmer must stay on their back and touch the wall with one hand.

Breaststroke

Breast stroke is also known as frog stroke. A swimmer has to move their arms and legs simultaneously, identically to each other. The arms and legs stay mostly underwater, but a swimmer’s head must break the surface every stroke. At the beginning, swimmers may do one pull-down. On the first stroke after the pull-down, a swimmer’s head must break the surface of the water. At the finish, unlike the other stroke mentioned earlier, swimmers must touch the wall with two hands.

Butterfly

Butterfly, also the hardest stroke, involves the dolphin kick. For this stroke, the arms pull underwater simultaneously, and out of the water simultaneously. Both hands must come out of the water at the same time. While pulling with hands, a swimmer must do dolphin kicks. Similarly to the breast stroke, the swimmer must touch the wall with two hands. Unlike the others, the flip turn is not allowed in Butterfly.