About Competitive Swimming

There are two types of swimming recognized within the sport – pool-based events and open-water swimming, which is sometimes known as marathon swimming.

Pool-based programme

There are two types of swimming competitions: long course and short course. Long course (LC) is held in a 50m pool and short course (SC) is held in a 25m pool. The Olympics is always held in a 50m pool but there are international competitions in both LC and SC.

The major difference is that a swimmer will turn more often in SC competitions and can therefore create more momentum from powering off the wall of the pool.

There are range of events in the swimming programme. Typically this will be 50m, 100m and 200m races in each of the strokes (breaststroke, backstroke, butterfly and freestyle). With freestyle there is also the 400m event and for women the 800m, and for men the 1,500 freestyle.

There are also 200m and 400m individual medley races for both men and women, where they will complete lengths using breaststroke, backstroke, butterfly and freestyle strokes.  Plus there are male and female relays swum over 4 x 50m.

Open Water Swimming

Open water swimming is basically as it sounds, swimming in open areas of water such as lakes, seas and rivers.

Open Water swimming was actually the forerunner of the pool (indoor) competitive swimming that we know today. Learn more about the history of Open Water swimming.

Open water competitions can be anything from 200m up to 88 kilometres but international competitions races tend to be centred around 5km, 10km and 25km. The main international competitions are:

Olympic Games    10km
World Championships   5, 10 & 25km
European Championships    5, 10 & 25km
European Junior Championships  5, 10 & 25km
LEN Cup     5 & 10km
FINA Marathon World Cup    10km
FINA Grand Prix    Various

The first ever Olympic 10km marathon swimming race was included in Beijing 2008. Team GB clinched three medals in this event – half the medals on offer. Thanks to David Davies, Keri-Anne Payne and Cassie Patten there is now more attention on the sport of open water swimming.

Interestingly, world open water swimming records are not kept by FINA simply because open water venues can be so different. This is not just in length but differences such as water conditions, water temperature and weather conditions.

If you would like to get involved in open water swimming there are a number of events in Great Britain for all ages and levels. The British Gas Great Swims are a series of mass participation events. The British Long Distance Swimming Association also organise many events through out the year.