Friday, August 03, 2012

The breaststroke is the most scandalous of all the strokes and it's becoming a farce to police!

Cameron van der Burgh golfinhou na saída from Julian Romero on Vimeo.

Cameron van der Burgh busted a couple of dolphin kicks off the start in his breaststroke event; about three even. Swim News noted in too many words that doing so off the start is a gray area at worst and that Van der Burgh defines it as "pushing boundaries."

This stroke has gone through so many rule changes that just about any world record set in the stroke should have an asterisk next to it explaining the rule change advantages that each swimmer had when the record was set.

I suspect FINA will either clarify the dolphin kick rule further or just let what Van der Burgh did become a de facto part of the breaststroke package. A once simple stroke is becoming the most complicated.

3 comments:

Will said...

Underwater dolphin kick should be banned in all strokes except butterfly. Hate that it's become one of the most important parts of the back and free.

Tony Austin said...

That's actually very insightful. If all the strokes incorporate butterfly then only those who have the best butterfly will dominate.

Will said...

Exactly. And I didn't have a great kick, so I never benefited. So there, I'm biased.