100 metre race strategy comparison between Olympic and visually impaired paralympic swimmers

Abstract

To provide feedback that can ultimately improve swimming performance the coach and swimmer use various forms of swim race analysis. Competition or swimming race analysis has become a regular feature in most international swimming events at Olympic games since 1988. This information is of particular interest to the swim coach in understanding why happened in the swim. Swimmers with a visual impairment have no frame of reference such as another swimmer to judge their swimming speed and wilt have to depend almost entirely on their predefined race strategy. The purpose of this study was to quantify the race strategy used by Olympic and visually impaired Paralympic swimmers (class S11, S12 &S13) who competed at the Sydney 2000 Olympic and Paralympic Games. The entire swimming events at the Sydney 2000 Olympic and Paralympic Games were recorded. Swimming speed, stroke length (SL) and stroke rate (SR) were measured twice per 50-m race lap to identify individual race patterns. All male and female Paralympic swimmers with visual impairment generally followed a similar pattern of race strategy that was different from the Olympic swimmers. Olympians had a longer SL than the other groups, with no difference in SR between the groups. The female Sll swimmers spent more time turning and used a significantly shorter SL in all four race sections. The results of this project quantify the race strategy used by Paralympic swimmers and provide useful information for both coach and swimmer regarding the optimal method of training.