With winter sport seasons beginning, sports like basketball, squash, indoor track, and swimming have begun competition. Swimming is a very common sport seen in colleges, high school, and clubs, and can be confusing to understand. This article is a useful guide to anyone new to the sport. 

Swimming is often individual, with the option of teams. In swimming, the typical strokes consist of freestyle (free), backstroke, breathstroke, and butterfly (fly). There is also an event called the medley, where a swimmer will do all four strokes. 

Standard distances are measured in meters and coincide with the length of the pool. For example, typical pools used are 50 meters, resulting in race distances of  50, 100, 200, 500, 1000, and 1500 meters (m) in freestyle. Other strokes are strictly raced in distances of 50, 100, and 200 meters. 

While swimming is typically an individual sport, there are team options called ‘relays.’ Relays involve four swimmers taking turns swimming a specific distance. Most relays are either 4×100 meters (each swimmer will swim for 100 meters) or 4×200 meters each swimmer will swim for 200 meters). Relays are typically entirely freestyle or a medley. 

Victors are determined  through a point system. The points coincide with the place that swimmer finishes in and goes toward that school’s total. For meets containing two college schools, called a dual meet,  the first place swimmer receives nine points, the second place swimmer receives four, then three, and so on. Swimmers finishing in sixth place or below do not receive points. Relay events earn eleven, four, two, and zero respectively.  This point system is specific to collegiate swimming, and different systems may be seen in different types of matches such as high school, club and at NCAA championship events. 

At Dickinson’s swim match on November 7 , the Red Devils secured the victory over Arcadia University. Dickinson outscored Arcadia with an impressive 143 to 59. Overall, eight individuals and two relays placed first, as well as sweeping categories men’s and women’s 1000 free, women’s 200 free and men’s 500 free. The next meet for both our men’s and women’s swimming team is a Gettysburg College Invitational on December 5 and 6.