Swimming races take place over distances ranging from 50m to 1500 metres
Swimming events are races over one or more lengths of a 50m pool. There are four different strokes: breaststroke, backstroke, butterfly and freestyle. Freestyle races allow any stroke to be used although, in any serious competition, competitors use the front crawl - the fastest of all swimming strokes.
The medley events incorporate all four strokes. Standards in swimming are improving rapidly, so look out for new world records at Doha 2006.
