A bluffers guide to swimming

Q: This one has always baffled me. How is it that swimming gets to be the big daddy of the first week? After a while, aren’t you just watching people not drown?

A: Nope. These are some of the fittest athletes at the games, the spectacle is incredible.

Q: But don’t all the races kind of blend into one? Is there really a significant difference between the 50m freestyle and the 100m freestyle?

A: Well there must be, nobody has done it since Alex Popov.

Q: You mean no man has done it since Alex Popov. The women do it all the time, don’t they?

A: Okay, so some of the events are a bit similar. But it’s still worth watching. Michael Phelps is about to make history. All he needs is to make the podium three times and he will have more Olympic medals than anyone in any sport.

Q: Sure, but it’s not like he’s running in one event and shooting in the other. He’s getting from one end of the pool to the other with slightly different movements of his arms and legs. Big deal.

A: It is a big deal! It’s an enormous deal. In Beijing, he swam 17 races in nine days and won eight gold medals. That doesn’t impress you?

Q: Beijing – that’s the one where literally everybody cheated, right?

A: Cheated is a bit harsh. But you’re right, Fina later banned the swimsuits worn in those games.

Q: You mean they removed the outboard motor.

A: In a manner of speaking. The suits were 50 per cent polyurethane making them unnaturally buoyant and they were virtually full body, reducing drag through the water. Dozens of world records went as a result.

Q: Who are the big dogs this time around?

A: Phelps is back, although not going for eight golds this time around. His Olympics get off to an arduous beginning today with the 400m individual medley against main rival Ryan Lochte. Others to look out for are women’s 200m backstroke rising star Missy Franklin and Aussie world champion in the 100m freestyle. James Magnussen. They call him The Missile, don’t you know.

– MALACHY CLERKIN

QUICK NOTES

Top-spoofing factoid: The Serpentine lake in Hyde Park, venue for the marathon swim, was where the pregnant wife of poet Percy Bysshe Shelley took her own life in 1816. Shelley remarried a fortnight later.

Do say: Michael Phelps eats 12,000 calories a day.

Don't say: So do I. You don't see anyone giving me a medal, do you?

When: Starts this morning with finals every day until August 4th. Marathon swim events are on August 9th and 10th.