Tom Decent The Sydney Morning Herald, citing anonymous sources, reported that World Aquatics had officially requested that the 50 m butterfly, 50 m backstroke and 50 m breaststroke be included in the schedule for the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles.
The competitions take place at the World Aquatics Championships, which are held (normally) every two years, a multi-discipline swimming event. However, the only 50-meter event at the Olympic Games is the 50-meter freestyle.
The addition of more disciplines to swimming, which already includes 37 medal events, including the men’s 800m freestyle and the women’s 1500m freestyle, which were new in Tokyo, creates additional complications. In addition to criticism of “medal inflation”, the 2024 Olympics already had a problem with small fields in certain events, as the IOC had introduced new lower athlete caps for the Games.
Adding these 50s swim events may require creativity from World Aquatics to avoid dramatically increasing the number of athletes invited, while also differentiating the events sufficiently from existing races to justify the expansion.
They could also pose roster cap challenges for countries like the US, which are already hitting the 26-player per-gender cap.
The additional events could also add even more time to a competition that was already pushed back to 9 days. Aside from the concerns that could arise about spectator friendliness and presentation of swimming, this becomes an issue in LA when swimming is the second week of the Olympics. Traditionally a first-week sport, it was moved to Los Angeles (swapped with track and field) so it could be held at So-Fi Stadium, which will also host the Games’ opening ceremony. Extending the competition even longer would reduce the amount of time organizers have to convert the pool from opening ceremony mode to swimming mode.
However, more events do not necessarily mean longer meetings: at the World Championships, a total of 42 medals are awarded in just 8 days of competition.
A well-known swimming personality, Ian Thorpewho has rarely or never swum 50-meter races is eligible for inclusion.
“The 50s have to be there… they’re important,” Thorpe told SMH. “It’s almost a unique event in itself that we should recognise. They’re exciting. In fact, I think it balances the programme perfectly between sprint racing and middle distance.
“I hope every swimmer is in favour. Every swimming fan should be in favour. I don’t understand why there should be controversy about including six swimming events in the programme, as swimming is an important part of the Olympic Games.”
