I just watched the NYT animation of the men’s 1500m freestyle and realized that, after turns, Bobby Fink largely gets out ahead of other swimmers because of how much speed he gets when he pushes off the wall, and then other swimmers start to catch up. It made me realize that if the competition were 1500m in a straight line, the results would be different.
Are there measures in place around how much time you actually have to “swim,” or is this just how swimming in a pool works?
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The force generated by the push-off is dissipated almost immediately. Look at how it works when you’re swimming. You push off the wall, and you go fast for about a second, and you slow down VERY quickly, because the water bleeds off that energy very effectively. When you see these swimmers gaining ground on the turns, it’s not because of the push-off. After they push off, they do a dolphin kick underwater, and some of these folks are better/stronger with that kick than others, so they can pick up some ground during that period.
Edit: Evidently being a swimmer and understanding basic physics are mutually exclusive.
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