paralympics gb staff - sportcentric

NEWCOMER’S GUIDE TO SWIMMING
Swimmers often talk using strange abbreviations and words that don’t apply to the outside world.
Below is a simple glossary of some of these terms.
PB - Personal best time
Splits - The time at each 50m turn. Swimmers will monitor these to check how they paced a race.
Taper - Prior to any big competition, a swimmer will ‘taper’. All this really means is that they rest they cut back the
amount of training that they do and decrease the intensity.
Free - Freestyle / front crawl
Breast - Breaststroke
Fly - Butterfly
Back - Backstroke
IM - Individual medley (butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke, freestyle). At the Paralympic Games there is a 200m IM
(a swimmer swims 50m of each above stroke) and a 150m IM for classifications SM3 and SM4 (50m of each stroke
excluding butterfly). In a medley relay, the backstroke is first which addresses the fact that backstrokers can’t do a
dive takeover. Four swimmers complete 50m or 100m each (depending whether it’s a 4x50m or 4x100m relay) in the
following order: backstroke, breaststroke, butterfly, freestyle.
Long Course - The Paralympic Games are being held in long course format, which means that all events take place in
a 50m pool. Short course events are those held in a 25m pool.
Shaving-down - Most swimmers shave the hair from their bodies for a big meet. Although they will remove almost all
of their body hair, the actual purpose is to remove the top layer of skin. This increases the sensitivity and “feel” for the
water. Even though a lot of swimmers will wear all-over body suits at the Paralympic Games, shaving will remain an
important psychological step in getting ready for a race.
The eight fastest swimmers from the heats will swim in the final. However, where there are less than eight entrants,
the race will be swum as a straight final.
The lane order for finals is decided from the times recorded in the heats (or in entry times in the case of a straight
final). The fastest qualifier swims in lane four, second fastest in lane five, third in lane three, fourth in lane six, fifth
in lane two, sixth in lane seven, seventh in lane one and eighth in lane eight. Theoretically, this creates a spearhead
format in the race.
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