Love Janet. I never realized how much she pulls her head out of the water and didn't use her legs so much even in final lap. (or underwater kicks). But man that's an amazing pull because she was obviously way better than everyone else! awesome.
Still phenomenal! Her underwater pull and conditioning, determination against everyone else she competed is something to be respected. I don't coach my swimmers this style as there are better style nowadays. This is purely historical anecdote but still demands respect for that time.
+Chadwick Mikel I don't think anyone was blasting her technique, merely pointing out that it was unorthodox which is not to say that it was at all detrimental.
Amazing!!! I can imagine lots of coaches during her early career giving up on her due to short height and lumpy stroke!! That is pure determination and put on effort!
I love it how just about half the posts are saying "her stroke is horrible", when I can guarantee ever single one of the posters have never seen the success in swimming that she had AND most of the posters weren't even BORN when she set these records. Why does age matter? Because if you had been alive at the time and heard swimming experts of the day comment on her technique you would know that while her wind-mill action above water was unorthodox and her head bobbed quite a bit, the significant part of it was her underwater pull, which was said to be highly efficient. Oh yeah, I forget, this is RUclips where people post without really knowing what they're talking about.
She also said in her book that it doesn't matter what you do above water (you can even wave to your mom). What matters is what you do under it (the pull at least).
Thank you for your comments! Janet Evans IS AND ALWAYS WILL BE my idol! I swim in special olympics now at the ripe old age of 47 and just got back into the pool of competition this past January or February. I was successful in realizing my dream of making it to state. Even if it was for special olympics, STATE IS STATE! I ended up with a state championship in my 50M freestyle. I DO have that same unorthodox stroke of hers. Neck and neck for the first lap with my competition until I was the only one to 1) start from the blocks, 2) breath every three strokes, 3) do a flip turn and 4) not breath in the final pprtion of the second lap to touch out the competition. My head popped up to see that the rest of the field was a 1/4 lap behind me!
I still think it is fair to call her stroke terrible overall for today's times. You can see it in that last 20 meters to the wall where she puts her head down and swims. Once she lifts her head, you see how much she slowed down just by breathing. Her coach really should have picked up on that but it is what it is. That's actually what makes her times so amazing - if she knew what we know now. I am a former competitive swimmer that still swims for fitness though I'm way past my prime. My focus on technique is what took me from a terrible swimmer when I started at age 12 to one that swam very well in college. I was alive when Janet set records, but I was also alive when Brooke Bennett was winning gold medals to Katie Ledecky winning gold medals. Being alive isn't a qualifier for having an opinion.
I would love to see her swim from 800m Free at these Olympic Games from start to finish. I would also love to see her 400m IM from these Olympic Games from start to finish. If anyone has these races, please put them on this website. She broke barriers, and did really the impossible by beating the East German women swimmers. She has got to be one the United States greatest female swimmers.
While I watched some Olympic moments from 1984 and 1988 I noticed this video among all other suggested videos. Not because video itself, but because title of this particular video... "Unorthodox Freestyle". Well, I'm not an expert, but Janet Evans can be described in one way only. Multiple Olympic champion and one of the the greatest female swimmers in distance freestyle events.
It is a very effective stroke for distance swimming despite its less celebrated appearance. Just look at how open water swimmers these days in 10km race and the reigning 1500m freestyle Olympics champ Gregorio Paltrinieri use similar strokes: punchy and loopy straight arm stoke, very little kick (2-beat kick usually). It was only "unorthodox" back then. But the success of many distance swimmers using similar stroke make it an orthodox way of swimming today.
Her stroke reminds me of those who swim in open water. Lifeguards at Bondi swim kinda like Janet Evans. It may be unorthodox in the pool, but it isn't in open water.
When I was younger, my best friend on the swim team and frequent medley relay mate had a bit of an unorthodox backstroke arm technique with a similar cadence to her strokes as Janet. Aside from a little excess head movement, her way of swimming backstroke worked pretty well for my friend. She was almost always the backstroke leg of any medley relay team she swam on.
Her technique is unorthodox - obviously. Sure it invites criticism, but it is obviously efficient; and if a world record setting swimmer has "poor technique" according to prevailing theory, then it's the theory that has a problem, not what she's doing. It doesn't look pretty like Popov or Ian Thorpe, but it works and it needs to be understood, not criticized. In case of Janet Evans, what you notice right away are the windmill arms; but there is plenty more that is "wrong": there is the bobbing head, which comes to almost a vertical position for a split second in the breathing cycle; the degree of lift of her torso is correspondingly extreme and there is a porpoise-like plunge back in after each torso lift; and almost never commented on but totally obvious, is her asymmetrical, lopsided arm cycle: not only are the left and right arms not mirror images in terms of their motion, there is a long stroke and a short one in terms of time. Finally, if you watch underwater shots, her kicking is completely unorthodox, with only one kick per arm cycle (or one kick of each leg per one complete two-arm rotation) - she does not flutter kick at all except off the turns. Sometimes she kicks with one leg and the other is dragged along doing these little twitches that are not even flutters. Back in the mid 1960s, the world's greatest distance swimmer, and the first swimmer ever to break 17 minutes for the 1,500 m., Roy Saari, also had this crazy stroke where he had an unconventional lopsided arm movement, and only one scissor kick per two-arms' rotation -- the rest of the time his legs kind of floated along in a serpentine side to side motion. The energy expenditure, and massive propulsion, was in the shoulders. Janet has one kick per each arm -- but there is something in the entirety of what she does that creates huge forward motion, not just buoyancy.
this is similar to Emil Zatopek in the running world. His form, by all measures, was atrocious, yet he managed to propel himself faster than anyone else at the time.
I remember when I was young that kind of two beat kick with windmill stroke was common among the water polo players in my swimming hall. If you pay attention to long distance swimming you will see that too, specially when navigating and during the middle part of the races in contrast to final sprints. That two beat kick is useful for short (relatively short for swimming that is, people of maybe 1,70 meters tall but with very strong build) but it requires greater cadence.
I don't know anything about technique and swimming. Hell, I can't swim at all. But I always thought that Evans looked like a riverboat going through the water. She was incredibly strong relative to body size and her machine-like paddle technique was easy for her to sustain. She simply did not get tired. I also thought she had one of the best kicks I have ever seen.
Swimming is a highly individualistic sport. The water responds to individuals based on the signals they send emotionally and physically. This have I discovered in my few years of personal research into the nature of water. This therefore explains why Evans even with her scattered stroke broke world records, don't forget that she was the only one with the unorthodox stroke, the rest were pretty effecient. This proves my theory on individualization of the water.
Umm.. they're *in* a pool. She set multiple world records *in a pool*. It obviously works in a pool. Unless you meant "never work in the average home pool" - at which point, *no* competitive swimmer's technique would work. They all hit a turn, kick off the wall, and coast so far that they'd hit the far wall in almost any home pool.
yes you're absolutely right and Janet Evans was obviously one of the greatest female swimmer . But i've never seen her swim and if we take a closer look on her technic , we underlined that her head is far away from the shoulder-head axis , when she breath , her head is coming too much out of the water and both of her arms are completely tight. Somehow, we can say that she swam entirely "in strength" more than she slides on the water. But you're right we can't see what's going on underwater
Popov has the best stroke ever. Her technique isn't bad it is just unconventional recovery. different strokes for different folks. if you look at old video of her underwater she has a very efficient stroke. that is how she went so fast she attacks that water and this was in 88 in old school suits 8 years before the first tech suit..... imagine how fast she could have been if she knew then what we know now about turns alone. Katie Ledecky is AMAZING and records are made to be broken (26 years).
I just love how people criticize a gold medal Olympian on her technique. Might as well go find some Jim Furyk vids to criticize his golf swing next! Then maybe we can go to Jason Belmonte's videos and bust him about his two-handed bowling delivery. Oh wait, they are major professional champions too? Hmmm, maybe it just comes down to what works best for the individual! I'd love to know the credentials of the complainers and what their Olympic medal tally is or Pro sports championships accrued are! ;-P
It is a very effective stroke for distance swimming despite its less celebrated appearance. Just look at how open water swimmers these days in 10km race and the reigning 1500m freestyle Olympics champ Gregorio Paltrinieri use similar strokes: punchy and loopy straight arm stoke, very little kick (2-beat kick usually). It was only "unorthodox" back then. But the success of many distance swimmers using similar stroke make it an orthodox way of swimming today.
Bob Mchugh I agree. What works best for the individual is key. But need to understand how much swimming has grown since 88 and there are things that were good enough in 88 that aren't now. Champions are a combination of talent and technique and with immense talent they can get away with some flaws in technique.
@@markchan006 It works for open swimming, however in still water, a stroke like Ian Thorpe or Sun Yang is still the most efficient and ideal. Obviously Sun Yang can't swim like that in the open, whereas Janet can use her technique anywhere.
What propels a swimmer happens underwater. It is impossible to swim fast and have an inefficient technique. She has obviously a perfect stroke with a high elbow and a tremendous stamina to maintain such a high tempo. Kudos to the coaches who did not try to mold her into something she is not. Whatever was going on above water was natural to her and helped her to relax her muscles.
Yup, her little flutters were only to get her upper body even with the surface so she could use her entire torso for arm movement rather than just her shoulders.
I'm never going to win an Olympic medal, so I wonder if they would let me present one. Even placing one around these amazing athlete's necks would be an honor.
certainly she must be really efficient since she finished first with this technic . And you're right about De Bruijn and Otto but personally i think that if we had to teach a child about the technic in freestyle , we better should show him or her how Rebecca Adlington or Camille Muffat swim. This particular technic can be efficient if you combine strength, stamina and a high number of training .
The only orthodox strokes are of the other swimmers. Evans’ stroke should be the norm if it’s that much more efficient. It’s like everyone racing a v6 cause the v8 makes too much noise.
Agreed. Her and Mary T Meagher's best performances (so Evan's 400m and 800m WR's and Mary's 100 & 200m Fly WR's ) are the greatest swims ever produced by female swimmers. However as GOAT's I would put them behind Fraser and Egerszegi because they maintained almost the same quality of times over 8+ years, as opposed to Janet and Mary who only held that pace for 1 season. Gould was another, she was the Phleps of her era.
Many traits of her style are wrong, but one is very good: her grip of the water. She give pressure where the water is dense. Most swimmers have no contact to the water, the swim like a paddle steamer on the Mississippi. Secondly, she has a wide range through the air. Her hands are in the water when maximum pressure results in maximum propulsion. She could have improved her style by increasing her rotation on the vertical axis.
If you think her style is ugly, try watch how Emil Zatopek run. Zatopek won 3 gold medals in Helsinki Olympics 1952 ( 5000m, 10 000m and marathon. ) That was really painful to watch .
Wow, do people understand that 'unorthodox' is not an insult? It just means 'unusual'. That's it. No one's insulting her for calling her style unorthodox. Whether or not it's better/worse has nothing to do with calling it unorthodox, which it absolutely was.
Imo her stroke is "grooved." Works for her. I don't reckon her coaches tried to change her stroke after she started progressing through her training times. What I'd like to know is her strokes per minute per 100 m, and her splits. There must be other parameters, but she was one heckuva swimmer. Bravo!
I assume you're referring to the visible technique of her windmill recovery in freestyle, as shown above. On an official trip to Colorado Springs at the Olympic training center video tapes were made of her underwater technique from many angles, which determined that below water she was exceptionally efficient, & since she had swam w/ that windmill recovery successfully her whole life, & wasn't proven to slow her down why change it? 2 other windmill examples: Kristen Otto & Inge De Bruijn.
Arms recover through air, not that important how they look. Underwater is where she was magic. She was an incredible athlete. Understand that any good coach can find a flaw with any swimmer, even the greatest. Swimming looks very individual above the water but all the greats share the same key points in catch and pull phases.
It is freestyle. My own little experiments clearly demonstrate that the basic crawl kick really isn't that efficient, unless one his really big flappy feet. I am convinced here kicking was different enough that it helped her do what she did
Elle a quand même un magnifique virage et je pense un coeur solide pour tenir de telles distances avec son style "25 m" nage libre. Elle est forcée, je crois, parce qu'elle n'est pas très grande, ce qui est un désavantage objectif en nage libre (Traînée, amplitude donc effet de levier). Elle développe donc un style atypique qui lui permet de gagner et de compter parmi les phénomènes de la natation. A ce niveau, je crois que le prize money n'est pas loin, et un métier d'homme sandwich... Du style "Moi, Janet Evans, championne de natation, j'utilise telle creme hydratante"...
of course...the yang sun technique is incredible but we cant forget yang sun is almost 20 cm taller than salnikov and is a stronger swimmer too. salnikov was very thin. yang sun got the body of a 50 or 100 meters swimmer...
Agreed, but her breathing baffles me... much more than the windmill stroke. Ultimately she achieved her goals and is a legend of American swimming, but I have to wonder if she could've been even faster if she didn't lift her head up to breathe.
+playinthesurf I'm confused about her breathing also, wouldn't she get dizzy breathing every two strokes? But, I defer to your point also, she probably would be slightly faster if she didn't breathe so often.
The holy war between bent vs. straight arm recovery is meaningless, because they do not really make that much difference, given sufficient conditioning, streamlined body position, and sound underwater mechanics. Her hips are high, her body is flat on the surface, and her head faces down when not breathing. She avoids catching air during entry and she finishes the push strong. All of this is just good standard freestyle. What makes her stroke special (but not unorthodox) is the loping stroke that many world-class swimmers like Katie Ledecky and Michael Phelps use during races: she recovers faster with the weak arm to maintain earlier streamline while stroking harder and breathing with the strong arm. Interestingly, Ledecky was the one in 2016 to finally break records held by Evans since 1988.
Her 400, 800, and 1500 WRs stood for almost 20 years. She set them in the 80's and no one topped them until 2006, 2008, and 2007 respectively.
18 years, 19 years, 19 years I believe. The 4:03 400 meter stood for 18.
RESPECT
Love Janet. I never realized how much she pulls her head out of the water and didn't use her legs so much even in final lap. (or underwater kicks). But man that's an amazing pull because she was obviously way better than everyone else! awesome.
I think pulling her upper body out reduces drag. And she doesn't kick a lot to conserve the energies for her arm.
She is great swimming player. and still now and forever
Such a happy, cute kid.
I don't care if she swam like a bowling ball, she was doing it faster than anyone else in the water.
Still phenomenal! Her underwater pull and conditioning, determination against everyone else she competed is something to be respected. I don't coach my swimmers this style as there are better style nowadays. This is purely historical anecdote but still demands respect for that time.
No comments about Janet! She´s amazing. I see this amazing race
who are all y'all to blast her technique? it won her the gold medal, so obviously she did something right.
4 Golds and 1 Silver.
Dagmar Hase
、！
+Chadwick Mikel I don't think anyone was blasting her technique, merely pointing out that it was unorthodox which is not to say that it was at all detrimental.
Yeah for sure. There's no doubt she's swimming a very effective stroke. Its just an eyesore to look at.
What an unorthodox yet amazing freestyler.
Those times are still world class 30 years later.
She will always be one of my favorites!!! Brava Janet! 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸
Amazing!!! I can imagine lots of coaches during her early career giving up on her due to short height and lumpy stroke!! That is pure determination and put on effort!
I love it how just about half the posts are saying "her stroke is horrible", when I can guarantee ever single one of the posters have never seen the success in swimming that she had AND most of the posters weren't even BORN when she set these records. Why does age matter? Because if you had been alive at the time and heard swimming experts of the day comment on her technique you would know that while her wind-mill action above water was unorthodox and her head bobbed quite a bit, the significant part of it was her underwater pull, which was said to be highly efficient.
Oh yeah, I forget, this is RUclips where people post without really knowing what they're talking about.
She also said in her book that it doesn't matter what you do above water (you can even wave to your mom). What matters is what you do under it (the pull at least).
I give you a standing ovation, my friend, for your last sentence.
lol
Thank you for your comments! Janet Evans IS AND ALWAYS WILL BE my idol! I swim in special olympics now at the ripe old age of 47 and just got back into the pool of competition this past January or February. I was successful in realizing my dream of making it to state. Even if it was for special olympics, STATE IS STATE! I ended up with a state championship in my 50M freestyle. I DO have that same unorthodox stroke of hers. Neck and neck for the first lap with my competition until I was the only one to 1) start from the blocks, 2) breath every three strokes, 3) do a flip turn and 4) not breath in the final pprtion of the second lap to touch out the competition. My head popped up to see that the rest of the field was a 1/4 lap behind me!
I still think it is fair to call her stroke terrible overall for today's times. You can see it in that last 20 meters to the wall where she puts her head down and swims. Once she lifts her head, you see how much she slowed down just by breathing. Her coach really should have picked up on that but it is what it is. That's actually what makes her times so amazing - if she knew what we know now.
I am a former competitive swimmer that still swims for fitness though I'm way past my prime. My focus on technique is what took me from a terrible swimmer when I started at age 12 to one that swam very well in college. I was alive when Janet set records, but I was also alive when Brooke Bennett was winning gold medals to Katie Ledecky winning gold medals. Being alive isn't a qualifier for having an opinion.
I would love to see her swim from 800m Free at these Olympic Games from start to finish. I would also love to see her 400m IM from these Olympic Games from start to finish. If anyone has these races, please put them on this website. She broke barriers, and did really the impossible by beating the East German women swimmers. She has got to be one the United States greatest female swimmers.
While I watched some Olympic moments from 1984 and 1988 I noticed this video among all other suggested videos. Not because video itself, but because title of this particular video... "Unorthodox Freestyle". Well, I'm not an expert, but Janet Evans can be described in one way only. Multiple Olympic champion and one of the the greatest female swimmers in distance freestyle events.
It is a very effective stroke for distance swimming despite its less celebrated appearance. Just look at how open water swimmers these days in 10km race and the reigning 1500m freestyle Olympics champ Gregorio Paltrinieri use similar strokes: punchy and loopy straight arm stoke, very little kick (2-beat kick usually). It was only "unorthodox" back then. But the success of many distance swimmers using similar stroke make it an orthodox way of swimming today.
Janet was small compare to other swimmers but her stroke was fast n furious!!! just an amazing swimmer!!!
That she was . I loved watching her .
I remember watching her back then!! Awesome!!
This brings tears to my eyes, love you mighty mite!
Which one is she?
@@dreamdiction The one with the swim hat on!
@@nialloneill5097 It's wrong to grade swimmers by their figure.
Her stroke reminds me of those who swim in open water. Lifeguards at Bondi swim kinda like Janet Evans. It may be unorthodox in the pool, but it isn't in open water.
Gracie. Up
It makes me think she learned in open water and that is her main swimming.
God bless Janet Evans, and, the USA : FREEDOM to choose the best!
Dreamed about her last night. She's so amazing. Our love for Janet Evans is eternal.
When I was younger, my best friend on the swim team and frequent medley relay mate had a bit of an unorthodox backstroke arm technique with a similar cadence to her strokes as Janet. Aside from a little excess head movement, her way of swimming backstroke worked pretty well for my friend. She was almost always the backstroke leg of any medley relay team she swam on.
The most brilliant people think "outside the box"! Janet was "outside the box"!
I like to swim laps and pretend I'm Janet Evans . Ha ha ha ha
Her head was literally out of the water half the time lol
@@v.dargain1678 I like to go burry myself in the backyard and pretend I'm a carrot.
@@sylvainguinepain5624 Yup! Gulping Oxygen. Janet was blessed with a high VO2 max rate!
Her technique is unorthodox - obviously. Sure it invites criticism, but it is obviously efficient; and if a world record setting swimmer has "poor technique" according to prevailing theory, then it's the theory that has a problem, not what she's doing. It doesn't look pretty like Popov or Ian Thorpe, but it works and it needs to be understood, not criticized. In case of Janet Evans, what you notice right away are the windmill arms; but there is plenty more that is "wrong": there is the bobbing head, which comes to almost a vertical position for a split second in the breathing cycle; the degree of lift of her torso is correspondingly extreme and there is a porpoise-like plunge back in after each torso lift; and almost never commented on but totally obvious, is her asymmetrical, lopsided arm cycle: not only are the left and right arms not mirror images in terms of their motion, there is a long stroke and a short one in terms of time. Finally, if you watch underwater shots, her kicking is completely unorthodox, with only one kick per arm cycle (or one kick of each leg per one complete two-arm rotation) - she does not flutter kick at all except off the turns. Sometimes she kicks with one leg and the other is dragged along doing these little twitches that are not even flutters. Back in the mid 1960s, the world's greatest distance swimmer, and the first swimmer ever to break 17 minutes for the 1,500 m., Roy Saari, also had this crazy stroke where he had an unconventional lopsided arm movement, and only one scissor kick per two-arms' rotation -- the rest of the time his legs kind of floated along in a serpentine side to side motion. The energy expenditure, and massive propulsion, was in the shoulders. Janet has one kick per each arm -- but there is something in the entirety of what she does that creates huge forward motion, not just buoyancy.
Thank for that insightful comment.
this is similar to Emil Zatopek in the running world. His form, by all measures, was atrocious, yet he managed to propel himself faster than anyone else at the time.
I remember when I was young that kind of two beat kick with windmill stroke was common among the water polo players in my swimming hall. If you pay attention to long distance swimming you will see that too, specially when navigating and during the middle part of the races in contrast to final sprints. That two beat kick is useful for short (relatively short for swimming that is, people of maybe 1,70 meters tall but with very strong build) but it requires greater cadence.
Is she trains in the same technique? (It is look like the swimming style is harmful for the shoulders)
Wow ...are you a pro swimmer or coach? Very good insight.
Amazing strength and power that she can swim that fast with her head so high out of the water !!!
woman warrior in my mind, I would treat her with respect! what a athlete, amazing!
Unorthodox but the results speak for themself!
I don't know anything about technique and swimming. Hell, I can't swim at all. But I always thought that Evans looked like a riverboat going through the water. She was incredibly strong relative to body size and her machine-like paddle technique was easy for her to sustain. She simply did not get tired. I also thought she had one of the best kicks I have ever seen.
As a swimmer, I think this is crazy.
Me too though I don't know how to swim at all , but her style just looks like a spring doll in water
Wonderful Janet. Winning the doped from the GDR.
Janet to everyone else: "eat my wash".
Swimming is a highly individualistic sport. The water responds to individuals based on the signals they send emotionally and physically. This have I discovered in my few years of personal research into the nature of water. This therefore explains why Evans even with her scattered stroke broke world records, don't forget that she was the only one with the unorthodox stroke, the rest were pretty effecient. This proves my theory on individualization of the water.
Her unique technique. No one can copy hers and swim fast as her with her technique.
winniepisces h 77uuii
I always thought the same way about Matt Biondi
That's how lots of triathletes swim. Allows them to keep a straight line.
This technique may work in the open water but it would never work in a pool...
Umm.. they're *in* a pool. She set multiple world records *in a pool*. It obviously works in a pool.
Unless you meant "never work in the average home pool" - at which point, *no* competitive swimmer's technique would work. They all hit a turn, kick off the wall, and coast so far that they'd hit the far wall in almost any home pool.
Straight arm?? ~ she may be unorthodox but her lead was incredible and she blew them away . . . .
Way to go JANET♥️❤️❤️
She has held the 800m world record for 20 years.
She was a beast!
Everyone saying her strokes and techniques are bad, yet she is a four time Olympic gold medalist. And what are bashers, besides bashers??
Y does it matter what style she used, she won. Some of these comments sound special
Awesome swimmer!
I was still playing with my transformers when, even if you never watched swimming events she was all over tv.
That's one beastly powerful stroke! Awesome!
Yes . From such a small female .
she had the biggest fight in her 5'5" frame 😌💗
yes you're absolutely right and Janet Evans was obviously one of the greatest female swimmer . But i've never seen her swim and if we take a closer look on her technic , we underlined that her head is far away from the shoulder-head axis , when she breath , her head is coming too much out of the water and both of her arms are completely tight. Somehow, we can say that she swam entirely "in strength" more than she slides on the water. But you're right we can't see what's going on underwater
She's still my only sports celebrity crush.
Her victory over 400m freestyle in Seoul was the single greatest swim of the modern era...if not also the most important. Natural talent > steroids.
Popov has the best stroke ever. Her technique isn't bad it is just unconventional recovery. different strokes for different folks. if you look at old video of her underwater she has a very efficient stroke. that is how she went so fast she attacks that water and this was in 88 in old school suits 8 years before the first tech suit..... imagine how fast she could have been if she knew then what we know now about turns alone. Katie Ledecky is AMAZING and records are made to be broken (26 years).
All time great.
I just love how people criticize a gold medal Olympian on her technique. Might as well go find some Jim Furyk vids to criticize his golf swing next! Then maybe we can go to Jason Belmonte's videos and bust him about his two-handed bowling delivery. Oh wait, they are major professional champions too? Hmmm, maybe it just comes down to what works best for the individual! I'd love to know the credentials of the complainers and what their Olympic medal tally is or Pro sports championships accrued are! ;-P
It is a very effective stroke for distance swimming despite its less celebrated appearance. Just look at how open water swimmers these days in 10km race and the reigning 1500m freestyle Olympics champ Gregorio Paltrinieri use similar strokes: punchy and loopy straight arm stoke, very little kick (2-beat kick usually). It was only "unorthodox" back then. But the success of many distance swimmers using similar stroke make it an orthodox way of swimming today.
Bob Mchugh I agree. What works best for the individual is key. But need to understand how much swimming has grown since 88 and there are things that were good enough in 88 that aren't now. Champions are a combination of talent and technique and with immense talent they can get away with some flaws in technique.
Bob Mchugh
Agree it worked for her
@@markchan006 It works for open swimming, however in still water, a stroke like Ian Thorpe or Sun Yang is still the most efficient and ideal. Obviously Sun Yang can't swim like that in the open, whereas Janet can use her technique anywhere.
You go girl !!
What propels a swimmer happens underwater. It is impossible to swim fast and have an inefficient technique. She has obviously a perfect stroke with a high elbow and a tremendous stamina to maintain such a high tempo. Kudos to the coaches who did not try to mold her into something she is not. Whatever was going on above water was natural to her and helped her to relax her muscles.
O.o she was pulling all the way through almost no kick!
God . She makes it look so easy .
Yup, her little flutters were only to get her upper body even with the surface so she could use her entire torso for arm movement rather than just her shoulders.
Results are everything! Windmill stoke and she comes up for air each stroke versus every other stroke like everyone else. More oxygen??
A Windmill ! Good analogy .
Amazing how she didn't even fatigue
Oh and let's not forget that this distance swimmer also dominated 400IM. HELLO! WHO does BOTH???? TRULY A LEGEND.
Now how could that be possible? Everybody says she has "terrible" technique ;)
Kudos Sandra F-B (posted below) - excellent comment.
That just looks exhausting. Like an open-water technique more than a pool swim.
Gregorio Paltrinieri just won 1500m freestyle in the pool of Rio Olympics with similar technique.
And able to swim through the tsunami and win. Others would be dead!
She used to be my swimming coach back in California
Amazing!!
you are profssinal swiming. congratulations for winning.
I'm never going to win an Olympic medal, so I wonder if they would let me present one. Even placing one around these amazing athlete's necks would be an honor.
certainly she must be really efficient since she finished first with this technic . And you're right about De Bruijn and Otto but personally i think that if we had to teach a child about the technic in freestyle , we better should show him or her how Rebecca Adlington or Camille Muffat swim. This particular technic can be efficient if you combine strength, stamina and a high number of training .
The only orthodox strokes are of the other swimmers. Evans’ stroke should be the norm if it’s that much more efficient. It’s like everyone racing a v6 cause the v8 makes too much noise.
Agreed. Her and Mary T Meagher's best performances (so Evan's 400m and 800m WR's and Mary's 100 & 200m Fly WR's ) are the greatest swims ever produced by female swimmers. However as GOAT's I would put them behind Fraser and Egerszegi because they maintained almost the same quality of times over 8+ years, as opposed to Janet and Mary who only held that pace for 1 season. Gould was another, she was the Phleps of her era.
She lifts her head to breathe but doesnt sink her hips or drag her legs
wow, this is impressive!!
I always thought world class swimmers were bigger? Taller, wider? She defied all expectations. Good on her.
Many traits of her style are wrong, but one is very good: her grip of the water. She give pressure where the water is dense. Most swimmers have no contact to the water, the swim like a paddle steamer on the Mississippi.
Secondly, she has a wide range through the air. Her hands are in the water when maximum pressure results in maximum propulsion.
She could have improved her style by increasing her rotation on the vertical axis.
How many Olympic gold medals do you have?
If you think her style is ugly, try watch how Emil Zatopek run. Zatopek won 3 gold medals in Helsinki Olympics 1952 ( 5000m, 10 000m and marathon. ) That was really painful to watch .
certainly but as all specialist opinion, Popov had the best stroke ever Sun Yang has to my mind , the stroke we should teaching
" 小雲雀” 伊雲斯是當年鐘保羅（ ㄧ棵蔥 ） 最喜愛的女泳手.😢😢
Wow, do people understand that 'unorthodox' is not an insult? It just means 'unusual'. That's it. No one's insulting her for calling her style unorthodox. Whether or not it's better/worse has nothing to do with calling it unorthodox, which it absolutely was.
Imo her stroke is "grooved." Works for her. I don't reckon her coaches tried to change her stroke after she started progressing through her training times. What I'd like to know is her strokes per minute per 100 m, and her splits. There must be other parameters, but she was one heckuva swimmer. Bravo!
As someone unfamiliar with swimming, her arm strokes look the same as the others to me. The only exception are maybe the leg kicks?
Who performs the music in this video? Thank you!
She used to be my #1 hero, but looking at it now.....doped to the gills.
List any times she failed tests. Or shut up.
Я видел Джанет на Играх Доброй Воли в Москве 1986 года
Она была самой юной и самой маленькой среди всех участниц
Но как она плыла.....
What’s the song?
The windmill stroke looks pathetic above water but it is devastating underwater and that is what really matter's!
I assume you're referring to the visible technique of her windmill recovery in freestyle, as shown above. On an official trip to Colorado Springs at the Olympic training center video tapes were made of her underwater technique from many angles, which determined that below water she was exceptionally efficient, & since she had swam w/ that windmill recovery successfully her whole life, & wasn't proven to slow her down why change it? 2 other windmill examples: Kristen Otto & Inge De Bruijn.
she is very fast
That was the swimming technique back in the late 80s
we do her 800 im set at practice every saterday practice
Back then a lot of swimmers had a technic what nowawadays swimmers would call bad. swimming is evolving.
It was just plain old "power" and not much finesse . It' was wuite impressive to me becausr Janet is petite . I love watching her .
The other swimmers are trying to swim efficiently whilst she is kicking their asses.
Hey she is at the Olympics; she wants to look around.
o jeito que nadavam nessa época... bem diferente de hoje em dia!
The unorthodox part is that she lifts her head for air farther than the rest? Is that it?
Arms recover through air, not that important how they look. Underwater is where she was magic. She was an incredible athlete. Understand that any good coach can find a flaw with any swimmer, even the greatest. Swimming looks very individual above the water but all the greats share the same key points in catch and pull phases.
Interesting... I believe there is a dolphin kick involved. I'm really confused lol
It is freestyle. My own little experiments clearly demonstrate that the basic crawl kick really isn't that efficient, unless one his really big flappy feet. I am convinced here kicking was different enough that it helped her do what she did
That was a "killerwhale kick", or maybe a Bruce Lee "WATER KICK"!!
Was dolphin kicking invented?
Elle a quand même un magnifique virage et je pense un coeur solide pour tenir de telles distances avec son style "25 m" nage libre. Elle est forcée, je crois, parce qu'elle n'est pas très grande, ce qui est un désavantage objectif en nage libre (Traînée, amplitude donc effet de levier). Elle développe donc un style atypique qui lui permet de gagner et de compter parmi les phénomènes de la natation. A ce niveau, je crois que le prize money n'est pas loin, et un métier d'homme sandwich... Du style "Moi, Janet Evans, championne de natation, j'utilise telle creme hydratante"...
u can seek Best stroke in Ricky Berens , Cullon Jones or Ian Thorpe as well .
of course...the yang sun technique is incredible but we cant forget yang sun is almost 20 cm taller than salnikov and is a stronger swimmer too. salnikov was very thin. yang sun got the body of a 50 or 100 meters swimmer...
background music really doesnt come up anywhere, any ideas?
u could try shazaming it?
Sounds like production music.
yeah definitely
Mikki Vlach Does not matter as a world record holder and Olympic gold medal winner her name is written in Olympic history !
Agreed, but her breathing baffles me... much more than the windmill stroke. Ultimately she achieved her goals and is a legend of American swimming, but I have to wonder if she could've been even faster if she didn't lift her head up to breathe.
+playinthesurf
I'm confused about her breathing also, wouldn't she get dizzy breathing every two strokes? But, I defer to your point also, she probably would be slightly faster if she didn't breathe so often.
Now we know why the sprinters are swimming with straight hands the last 10 meters.
Jeez she's like a rocket - nobody even touching anywhere near her...
The holy war between bent vs. straight arm recovery is meaningless, because they do not really make that much difference, given sufficient conditioning, streamlined body position, and sound underwater mechanics. Her hips are high, her body is flat on the surface, and her head faces down when not breathing. She avoids catching air during entry and she finishes the push strong. All of this is just good standard freestyle. What makes her stroke special (but not unorthodox) is the loping stroke that many world-class swimmers like Katie Ledecky and Michael Phelps use during races: she recovers faster with the weak arm to maintain earlier streamline while stroking harder and breathing with the strong arm. Interestingly, Ledecky was the one in 2016 to finally break records held by Evans since 1988.
Missing the days where the women looked so good in their swimsuits!!!
what is so unorthodox?It s called freestyle for a reason.
Well, that's why it's called freestyle.