{"id":568918,"date":"2023-08-31T05:05:45","date_gmt":"2023-08-31T12:05:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/?p=568918"},"modified":"2023-08-30T23:11:30","modified_gmt":"2023-08-31T06:11:30","slug":"multi-race-showcase-for-swimming-a-proposal-for-an-aquatic-heptathlon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/multi-race-showcase-for-swimming-a-proposal-for-an-aquatic-heptathlon\/","title":{"rendered":"Multi-Race Showcase for Swimming? A Proposal for an Aquatic Heptathlon"},"content":{"rendered":"

Multi-Race Showcase for Swimming? A Proposal for an Aquatic Heptathlon<\/strong><\/p>\n

One aquatic race long ago earned the title of “decathlon of swimming.” The 400 individual medley is one of the sport’s great tests of fitness and endurance, and it requires mastery of all four competitive disciplines. The top 400 IMer in the world can stake a claim to being the world’s best swimmer or certainly the most versatile. This was the race where Michael Phelps<\/strong> could show off all of his skills in one, and that’s why he went undefeated in the 400 IM for so long and held the world record for 21 years, longer than any other swimmer in history. Now, special talents like\u00a0Leon Marchand<\/strong><\/a> and\u00a0Summer McIntosh<\/strong><\/a> have perfected the skills necessary to become world-record holders in the grueling event.<\/p>\n

But what if swimming had a multi-race test that could determine indisputably the world’s top swimmer? The recent World Athletics Championships was a reminder that swimming lacks an event akin to the men’s decathlon or women’s heptathlon in track and field. That sport which requires additional specialization compared to swimming, with few overlaps between sprints and mid-distance or mid-distance and distance on the track and almost no overlap in field competition.<\/p>\n

The decathlon and heptathlon are comprised of athletes who don’t compete in single-discipline events, which makes sense considering the insane toll of contesting 10 (men) or seven (women) events over two days. The majority would not be competitive globally in any one of their events, which is a strong contrast from swimmers like Phelps, Marchand and McIntosh, all world champions in single-stroke events in addition to their medley success.<\/p>\n

So imagine that swimming did have a combined event. Deploy a lineup of races, with certain times in each set to count for particular point values. Add up all the points to determine the standings. Simply adding times together for a composite would provide an advantage for endurance specialists since their races would take up a larger percentage of the entire competition. Under this points system, a high-quality 50 free provides the same impact as a stellar 400-meter race.<\/p>\n

In athletics, the women’s heptathlon comprises of the 100 meter hurdles, high jump, shot put and 200 meters on day one, followed by the long jump, javelin throw and 800 meters on day two. Meanwhile, the men start out with the 100 meters, long jump, shot put, high jump and 400 meters and return the next morning for the 110 meter hurdles, discus throw, pole vault, javelin throw and 1500 meters.<\/p>\n

For swimming, in which athletes generally can recover more quickly and compete more often than track athletes, we are proposing a single-day combined event split between two sessions with at least six hours off in between. The lineup w9uld be comprised of all existing events, and it could look like…<\/p>\n