Medley swimming

Medley is a combination of four different swimming styles into one race. This race is either swum by one swimmer as Individual Medley (IM) or by four swimmers as a Medley Relay.

Medley Relay

Medley relay consists of four different swimmers in one relay competition, each swimming one stroke.

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Stroke Order

Medley relay is swum by four different swimmers, each swimmer swimming one of the four strokes. Backstroke is the first event as backstroke is started from the water. If backstroke would not be the first event, the starting backstroke swimmer and the finishing previous swimmer could block each other. The remaining strokes are sorted according to the speed, with breaststroke being the slowest and freestyle being the fastest stroke. The order of the strokes is as follows:

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• Backstroke
• Breaststroke
• Butterfly
• Freestyle, with the limitation that freestyle means any style other than backstroke, breaststroke or butterfly.

Competitions

There are a number of competitions swum regularly in medley relay, both by men and women.

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• 4*50 Medley Relay: Swum on the short 25m lane only. This is not an Olympic competition
• 4*100 Medley Relay: Swum on both the short 25m lane and the long 50m lane. This was the first Olympic medley competition and is swum since the 1960 Summer Olympics, Rome, Italy. The first Olympic butterfly event itself was first swum in the previous 1956 Summer Olympics.

Technique

The technique for medley relay events does not differ much from the technique for the separate events for the four strokes. The first swimmer swims the 50 or 100m backstroke normally. The only difference for the following swimmers is that there is no start signal, but rather the previous swimmer completing its turn by touching the wall signals the start for the subsequent swimmer.

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