it seems a little arbitrary having medals for both freestyle and also backstroke, butterfly, etc. Like, in track and field there’s not a 100m “running backwards” event. Why are there so many medals for swimming? Who decided it was that important relative to other forms of physical endeavor?
It also seems awkward in comparison to olympic weightlifting, which has TWO different lifts as part of a single event. I understand that they already bracket it by weight classes, but why not break it into a medal for the clean-and-jerk and another for the snatch? Or alternatively, add other events that test strength and precision?
I’m okay if the answer is just “that’s how it’s always been” and general path-dependence, but it seems a bit odd.
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Different sports have different levels of popularity, and that often determines how much exposure they get in the Olympics. Swimming is a very popular sport. Maybe swimming is more popular than weightlifting.
Another thing to consider is that although there are only two types of lifts in the Olympics, there are various weight classes. So, if you have multiple types of lifts with multiple weight classes, that equals dozens if not hundreds of separate events. Than can be a bit too much.
Last time I paid attention to Olympic weightlifting there were separate Medals for the different lift types in each weight category. If that’s not the case at the upcoming Olympics I hope the organising committee released a statement explaining the decision
There are arbitrary track events too, like hurdles. Swimming also has more degrees of freedom for movement. You can move up and down instead of just forwards and backwards. Adding degrees of freedom increases the number of possible movements exponentially. Not to mention, also using your arms.
I think you are trying to approach this matter too idealistic. At the end of the day the Olympics is a capitalist endeavor. Unfortunately the days of it being a celebration of human artistic and physical achievements in Ancient Greece are over.
The Olympic committee selects sports and their respective sub disciplines based on two factors: how big are the sports associations that regulate the sports, with which comes money and power. And how well do TV licenses sell and which sport attracts the most viewers.
Sports that have very small athletic associations will eventually be kicked form the Olympics because they can’t supply athletes, referees, rules etc. Sports that don’t perform well with viewership will be kicked too.
For some reason, swimming performs insanely well during Olympics probably because it’s a direct competition with relatively quick races and results. Although swimming is largely unimportant outside of the Olympics and the world swimming associations aren’t all that powerful in the Olympic committee, they just bring TV money.
Weightlifting performs poorly in Olympics viewerships. The only reason there is any competition at all is the relatively powerful weightlifting associations. They are powerful because weightlifting seems to be a little bit more popular outside of Olympic events. If it wasn’t for them, the sport would’ve been long from the Olympics long ago.
Former competitive swimmer here – I never made it beyond state but trained with folks who were nationally ranked. Though all swimming events look similar to an outsider the different strokes (backstroke, breaststroke, butterfly, freestyle) and different distances require different training. There are some great butterfly competitors who are also, say, great backstroke competitors, but that means that person has trained hard to do two different physical activities, not that they’re intuitively easy for a competitor to switch between.
To use your weightlifting example, I don’t know why they don’t isolate muscle groups and have different events for, say, dumbbell curls vs dumbbell presses, but the swimming events they have make sense the same way track and field events do.
Swimming, and gymnastics are ‘over represented’ at the Olympics, and many athletes get to compete in more than one event because the disciplines are all so similar.
This means that countries that produce athletes good at swimming or gymnastics get to have a higher tally of gold medals.
The IOC is politically connected and get encouraged to include events in certain sports. Cold War shenanigans ahoy.
The USA has good swimmers
Russia/USSR has good gymnasts
tl;dr there are more events in swimming than weightlifting because America wanted more gold medals. Russia did the same with gymnastics. Cycling is also over represented these days because Europe is good at that.
Other countries lack the political clout ($$$) to ‘encourage’ events that they’re good at.
>why not break it into a medal for the clean-and-jerk and another for the snatch? Or alternatively, add other events that test strength and precision?
I can’t see why not. At least world records are specific enough to allow for WR snatches, WR C&J and totals independently.
In powerlifting, you can have bench only meets.
While we’re on the topic, why not allow powerlifting into the Olympics as well?
Just saw Trevor Noah do a bit on this in his latest comedy special on Netflix.
Yeah, it’s just because that’s the way the sports authorities do it, so that’s the way the Olympics do it.
There are different categories of weightlifting, just as there are swimming.
Same as track – 100m / 400m / hurdles etc etc.
Worse, athletes cannot remain in the village after their event is completed. So if your sole event in target-shooting was held early in the first week, tough shit, you have to leave.
Meanwhile, a lot of swimming and track and field athletes are qualified for multiple events, so they can stay and fuck around (literally, it’s a enormous brothel) until they are done, which could be til the last days of the olympics.
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