Swimming

Swimming and Para Swimming sees events comprising of four swimming styles – freestyle, breaststroke, butterfly and backstroke, together with medley events which include all four strokes.

With distances ranging from a breathless 50m to a lung busting 1500m, the variety of events will showcase the talent, skills and strengths of every athlete in the pool, each vying to claim a place on the podium.

As well as individual races, in Swimming and Para Swimming spectators will be able to marvel at the relay events, which see teams of four swimmers work together to outswim their opponents.

Swimmers compete in a 50m pool – double the length you might find in typical leisure pool, and often referred to as ‘Olympic size’. For most events, heats will take place first, with the fastest swimmers or relay teams proceeding to semi-finals and finals.

The rules are simple: Swim faster than everyone else – the first to touch the wall wins.

Previous Games Appearances

Swimming is ever-present at the Commonwealth Games, after debuting at the inaugural event in Hamilton in 1930.

Most Olympic Games have hosted swimming events with it now being a consistent sport at the Games. However there were a fiver Olympic campaigns where New Zealand did not have any representatives: London 1908, Los Angeles 1932, Berlin 1936, Rome 1960, and Moscow 1980 where the NZ Government instigated a boycott on our Olympic athletes.