When swimmers turn around, why are there judges peering at them?

[DownUnder87]

I know nowhere else where I could have this question answered

Do you mean at the end of the lane? If so, to check they have touched with both hands or whatever the stroke rules require.

Yes. Is it not much easier to touch with two hands? So why would you choose to touch one handed- would that not be a mistake?

To check they touch the end however they're supposed to?

They must touch: 2 hands simultaneously for breast/ fly, with any part of the body in back/ free. There are restrictions on how they come out of the turn (ie one fly kick at the start of a length of breast) that we look for.
There are a surprising number of rules linked to the turn (and every other part of swimming). I’ve been officiating swimming for about 6 years.

with any part of the body in back/ free

That seems inefficient

how they come out of the turn
That's very interesting. Thank you :)

@DownUnder87 if they touch one handed they can be turning more quickly. Sometimes you see a firm touch with one hand and a fingertip brush with the other. Done correctly, it can be quicker- but it can easily backfire and gave swimmers DQed (disqualified).

@DownUnder87 if you want to see really interesting turn, look for the back to breast turn in an individual medley. They must finish as in backstroke- so will touch one handed but need to flip onto the front in order to push off with a good fly kick ready to breast stroke. It often looks like a frog!

Yes, touching with any part other than the feet is inefficient (but not against the rules). More hours than you can imagine go into perfecting these turn (and must be relearned if the swimmer inconveniently grows).

Sometimes as a casual viewer I forget to think about how much technique goes in there and think they are really just bombing it down the pool It's so good when the commentators (or helpful people like yourself) go into the details.

You can see lane ropes are different colours near the ends, and there are also flags above the pool, plus the black lane lines on the pool floor gave a bar near the end - all these markers help swimmers work out when to start their turns. If you turn slightly too far from the wall, you lose a lot of speed because you've no push from the wall, or you risk injury if you swim too close before turning. There are also rules about how much swimming you can do underwater (which is faster) before you must break the surface after turning.

You can see lane ropes are different colours near the ends, and there are also flags above the pool, plus the black lane lines on the pool floor gave a bar near the end

Ooooh yes, I did notice them and never connected that in my mind! Thank you.

@DownUnder87 TBF before DS became a competitive swimmer, I had no idea either. Seven years of watching coaches at work has taught me a very healthy respect for the technical work that goes into it.

The intrigue is in the details

This is a good place to ask - I am sure I remember in the Moscow Olympics or about that time, a Scottish woman swimmer being eliminated from the breast stroke final because her head went underwater.

When I watched the men's breast stroke the other day I thought all their heads went underwater. Have the rules changed or are they so clever these days that they are managing to keep their head 0.001 mm above the surface of the water which is not apparent to the naked eye?

I used to do competitive swimming as teenager and was so rubbish at backstroke that I got disqualified once when I misjudged when to start the tumble turn and didn’t touch the wall 🤦🏻‍♀️I had someone peering over the edge of the pool at me even then!

@BalloonSlayer at some point in the cycle of the stroke the head must break the water. So it may be underwater some of the time, but not all.

@EBearhug

You can see lane ropes are different colours near the ends, and there are also flags above the pool, plus the black lane lines on the pool floor gave a bar near the end - all these markers help swimmers work out when to start their turns. If you turn slightly too far from the wall, you lose a lot of speed because you've no push from the wall, or you risk injury if you swim too close before turning. There are also rules about how much swimming you can do underwater (which is faster) before you must break the surface after turning.

15m underwater maximum for all strokes. The head must break the surface by then. There’s a red? Lane marker there.

Anyone remember Ryan Lochte ?
He used to do his 15m underwater after a turn on his back in the freestyle , rolling over as he approached 15m.
Did they ban that, haven’t seen swimmers do that since he did it.

@tanstaafl yes, they did. Swimmers need to be “on the breast” before any stroke is completed. So being more than 90 degrees off their front would be a DQ. It’s a reasonably recent change to rules, often causing officials to squint to see properly.