Always feel a bit ambivalent about swimming. Why don't they just do all the distances in the fastest swimming style rather than backstroke, breaststroke etc. After all you don't have the 100 m run forwards, backwards, and hopping. Be a short tournament I suppose.
I know what you mean Fran. The stroke I mentioned in The Hardest Sport thread, the butterfly, is a purely invented stroke for competition. Although I can't do it, I understand it takes the living daylights out of the performer, and it isn't as fast as front crawl either. It certainly leaves me gasping. The other strokes do have their practical uses - backstroke has kind of evolved from a lifesaving stroke it started out to be. Front crawl evolved from a simple doggy paddle style, I believe, and breast stroking is just nice to do - I mean swim, because it's so natural and easy..! Have various distances, relays and medleys for the various strokes and before you know it, you've got the ability to win loads of Gold medals at one Olympics. Perhaps hopping at various distances could become an Olympic sport for the track..?
This morning, Jessica Ennis ran the fastest 100m hurdles any British woman has ever run before, and the fastest heptathlon time from any nation. She went like a little rocket.
Damn..! Missed it. And I notice the BBC Sport website is getting a wee bit slower today. I can't imagine the millions who have been hitting it recently and today. Will it crash..? It can't do. It's the BBC..!
Ennis doing well in high jump. Watching steeplechase...find the waterjump puzzling...trying to pretend it is cross country.