Let us review what events there are in swimming competition in Olympics. To qualify for the Olympics, each country has its own rules. However, most of the good industrialized countries need something called Olympic A cut. (It is a time standard.)
The Olympic committee says that two persons per country can swim an event if they make the A qualifying standards or one if the individual meets the B qualifying time. But some countries will swim even they cannot qualify.
Of course in countries like USA, there are events like 100 meter freestyle with 14 guys under the A cut. It just simply becomes top 2. However, the 100 freestyle and 200 freestyle events take 6 people. Why? Because of the relays. There are 4 people in the relay. To give the athletes a rest, Americans usually take some spares for the prelims.
We will review freestyle first:
Freestyle (Front crawl)
50 meter – Two people qualify (considered the fastest event)
100 meter – 6 people (considered a speed event)
200 meter – 6 people (crossing distance from sprint to middle distance, takes awareness of distance)
400 meter – 2 people (very hard middle distance event, like a mile for running)
800 meter - only for women - 2 people (flat out pacing distance event)
1500 meter - only for men 2 people (flat out pacing distance event)
For team USA, you can find the roster on the USA swimming website for each specific event.
Guest Blogger - Micah Belew
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