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Former high school swimmer. I just read the first chapter and I am stuck on the chapter saying the 400m individual medley is the hardest event in swimming. Do the majority of you think the same?
Because the events no one wanted to do when I was in high school were the 100 butterfly and the 500 freestyle; the entire reason I was even in the fly was because there was only one other event between it and the 500 so it served as a warm up. I was an endurance swimmer so I wouldn't call the 500 that difficult because someone counted for you. In the Olympics, this is the full mile and they still count for you.
But even in the Olympics, near no one looks good after two laps of Butterfly (Yes, Michael Phelps is an exception.) In high school, it's 50. Olympic-sized pools are 50 long so that's a 100. From my perspective, doing butterfly the entire time is the most difficult. With a medley, it's not only easier to count because you switch strokes but as they focus on different muscle groups, you get a bit of a break switching to another stroke.