This Is What a 13 Second 50m Freestyle Looks Like

This Is What Swimming a 50m Freestyle in 13 Seconds Looks Like

When it comes to swimming really, really fast, often coaches will have their athletes strap up to some resistance tubing.

The swimmer can swim against the pull of the chord in one direction to develop power, and then with the “pull” of the chord coming back to the wall experience swimming at a much faster rate than they could attain from regular swimming.

Taking it a step further teammates can run alongside the pool deck pulling the stretch chord, making up for the slack that inevitably happens.

In the below video posted to Auburn coach Brett Hawke’s Instagram we get a glimpse into what happens when a world-class sprinter is towed by not one, but by three stretch chords across the length of a 50m pool.

Israeli Olympian Ziv Kalontarov is the lucky athlete who gets to experience hydro-planing across the surface of the pool as though he is wearing a jet-pack. Going this fast is not only a heckuva lot of fun, but as you can see from Ziv’s first few strokes a bit of a shock to your stroke rate and technique.

How fast does he make it across the pool?

By Hawke’s watch he does it in a sultry 13.2 seconds:

Breaking world records today @zivk101 #roadtorio @rio2016 13.2 seconds for 50m! #breaktheinternet

A video posted by Brett Hawke (@hawkebr) on

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Olivier Poirier-Leroy

Olivier Poirier-Leroy

Olivier Poirier-Leroy is the founder of YourSwimLog.com. He is an author, former national level swimmer, two-time Olympic Trials qualifier, and swim coach.
Olivier is the author of the books YourSwimBook and Conquer the Pool. He writes all things high-performance swimming and is passionate about helping swimmers, swim coaches, and swim parents  master the pool. His articles were read over 4 million times last year and his work has                                  appeared on USA Swimming, SwimSwam, STACK, NBC Universal, and more. He’s also                                    kinda tall and can be found hitting noon-hour lap swims. You can learn more about                                       Olivier here.

Olivier Poirier-Leroy Olivier Poirier-Leroy is the founder of YourSwimLog.com. He is an author, former national level swimmer, two-time Olympic Trials qualifier, and swim coach.

Olivier is the author of the books YourSwimBook and Conquer the Pool. He writes all things high-performance swimming and is passionate about helping swimmers, swim coaches, and swim parents master the pool.

His articles were read over 4 million times last year and his work has appeared on USA Swimming, SwimSwam, STACK, NBC Universal, and more.

He’s also kinda tall and can be found hitting noon-hour lap swims. You can learn more about Olivier here.

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