Why Runners Should Watch the Olympic Swimming Events

With the opening ceremony's in a few hours and the competition starting tomorrow, Rio is actually here. But as a reader of this blog, you're probably wondering what you're gonna do until the exciting stuff (a.k.a. people running in circles) starts a week from now. Lucky for you, all of the swimming events are going to be happening the week before track starts, so you have some action to get you warmed up before the real fun starts.

Now if you like watching the world's best run in circles really fast, you might also like watching the world's best swim back and forth really fast. But if you aren't quite of that mindset yet, or if you want to watch swimming but have no real clue what to watch for, or if you just read every single thing that pops up on this site, than this is for you.

1. Just like track, its racing at its core
Every swimmer stepping up on the blocks is doing the exact same thing that every runner who toes the line is doing: trying to beat the person next to them. Everyone loves a good race, track fans especially. Every race in Rio will be exciting in its own way, and the swimming will be just as good as (if not better) than the big oval. The two sports are the same at their core.

Now, if you're looking for a more direct comparison between the two disciplines, taking a race distance in the pool and multiplying it by 4 gives you pretty much the same race distance on the track (it breaks down a little bit outside the middle distances, but it's still close). Don't believe me? Let's look at some world records.
Men's 100m Freestyle/400m dash: 46.91/43.18
Men's 200m Freestyle/800m run: 1:42.00/1:40.91.
Men's 400m Freestyle/Mile run: 3:40.07/3:43.13.
Men's 800m Freestyle/3000m run: 7:32.12/7:20.61

While this obviously isn't perfect, it's pretty good at letting the avid track and field fan have some inkling as to what kind of race they're watching.

2. Katie Ledecky
I'm going to do my best not to go on for pages about her, but she will steal the show at Rio. After becoming a surprise gold medalist in the women's 800m freestyle at age 15 in the London Games, Ledecky has quickly cemented herself as the top distance swimmer in the entire world. She holds the world records in the 400m, 800m, and 1500m freestyle. She is undefeated in major international competition, with 1 Olympic gold medal and 9 world championship gold medals. She holds the 10 fastest times in all of history in the 800m freestyle, and is over 7 seconds faster than anyone in history. She has set world records at small in-season meets just because she can.

Now, as any track and field fan should rightly suspect, the doping question is immediately raised. However, as far as we know, she has passed every drug test she has ever been required to take, and taken additional drug testing in support of having a clean sport. Her big secret? She trains with the boys and isn't afraid of them. And i don't mean she lags behind the male olympic distance swimmers that she trains with. She keeps up with, and even beats them in practice day in and day out. Her drive and determination is other-worldly, and she is going to demolish the competition in Rio. If you want to see someone win a distance race from the start and push to the very end, watch for when Katie Ledecky comes on TV. You won't be dissapointed.

3. Experienced veterans vs youthful energy
This is a headline that we could also be seeing in track and field. Just as an aging Mo Farah will try to go out on top in the 5k and 10k, the 31-year-old Michael Phelps, 32-year-old Ryan Lochte, 30-year-old Lazlo Cseh, and 35-year-old Anthony Ervin will be battling the youthful racers in the likes of Japanese superstar Kosuke Hagino, Austrailia's Cam McEvoy (who came within .13 of a WR in season this year), and many other new faces on the U.S team, some of whom upset defending Olympic gold medalists at US Trials just to get on the team, will engage in a battle of the decades up and down the pool. Perhaps we could see the same thing with the likes of Clayton Murphy, Boris Berian, Robby Andrews, running on the same team as Bernard Lagat and many others competing for the U.S. on the track in a week.

4. Michael Phelps
Ok, yes, we've seen him winning medals and breaking world records for the past 16 years. But as he pulls a Brett Favre and swears he's retiring "for good" this time, we are actually seeing a very different Phelps than usual. He's not the quiet, laser-focused, machine that we saw in '04 or '08. He's not a 20-something party animal who gets DUI's or bong photo's plastered all over the internet. He's not even the guy we saw two years ago make a soft comeback "just for fun." He's a changed man, who has now revealed that he had a lot of inner demons that made him not even want to be in London for the 2012 Olympics. He's a sober man, a man who has finally reconnected with his estranged father, and a man who has recently become a father himself and has a wedding planned for after the games.

He's put in training that his coach "hasn't seen him do since the lead up to '08." In the 3 individual events that he will be contesting, he owns the World #1 times from all of 2015. He's been talking about wanting to go personal bests, which for him, would be World Records. But at 31, he'll face stiff international competition, including Chad Le Clos of South Africa, who ran him down in London for the 200m butterfly gold. The 200m fly is Phelps' signature event, it's where he made his first Olympic team in 2000, made his first world record in 2001, and where he has the world leading time for 2015 (a time faster than what won gold in London). Many believe Phelps is coming back for revenge on what happened in 2012, and will be out to do what he couldn't last time around in his best event. Oh, and he has the chance to become the first swimmer ever to win 4 consecutive golds in his other two individuals. History. Revenge. Phelps. You won't want to miss the G.O.A.T's last races.

5. There's never any tactical jogging. Its all racing
If there's one thing that a lot of modern track and field fans don't like, its watching elite athletes jog for 95% of a race and let it come down to who's a better sprinter when they're a little tired. Swimming doesn't see that, ever. Every race in the pool will see an assault on the World Record and everyone pushing their limits on the biggest stage.

The main reason for this is that everyone is in their own lane, so passing someone doesn't require covering extra distance and trying to get around somebody. In the pool, you just speed up and go for it. Everyone trains this way, so they train to give it their all and challenge not only the people around them, but challenge themselves as hard as possible. In the end medals will be won, records will fall, and everyone in the pool will have pushed themselves to their absolute maximum.

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-Paul Hayes