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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(Unpopular opinion, but) events where western countries have traditionally dominated (until China bested them at the game).
If they have to build a giant dang pool I imagine they want to use it as much as they can lol.
Though really, running and swimming both have a huge variety of events, running can be categorized by distance, addition of obstructions like hurdles, team relay races, etc. Swimming is going to have very different competitions for synchronized diving as opposed to freestyle swimming.
Compared to like, pole vault or high jump, there isn’t really much variation to that. Everyone’s going for who vaults the highest. Weightlifting everyone’s going for who lifts the most. Don’t think they’re going to split the shot put by the competitors chosen technique to yeet the orb. Just matters how far it went.
There are 3 in each category for weightlifting, along with a lot of different weight and sex categories. (Swimming only has 2 sex categories and no weight divisions).
This doesn’t excuse that swimming has way too many.
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