Swimming
About Competitive Pool Swimming
Competitive pool swimming goes from the grassroots to the highest levels in the Olympic programme. Find out more…
There are two types of pool swimming competitions: long course and short course.
Inter-County Team 2013
Long & Short Course
Long course (LC) events are held in a 50m pool and short course (SC) is held in a 25m pool. The Olympic Games is always held in a 50m pool but there are international competitions in both LC and SC.
The major difference is that a swimmer will turn more often in SC competitions and can therefore create more momentum from powering off the wall of the pool.
There are range of events in the swimming programme. Typically this will be 50m, 100m and 200m races in each of the strokes (breaststroke, backstroke, butterfly and freestyle). With freestyle there is also the 400m event and for women the 800m, and for men the 1,500 freestyle.
Please follow the links on the right to more detailed information on the discipline of swimming.