My Favourite Swim Race Videos of 2014-2015 (and Some Earlier Years)

The 2014-2015 season is basically behind us now. Below are some of my favourite racing videos from the year. Since this is my first time doing this annual review, I’ve also added some of my favourites from the past as well.

Unfortunately, some of the races I watched during the World Championships feed are not available outside of the US any more, including any videos from SwimSwam partner Universal Sports Network. Which means I can’t get all of the World Championship videos that I wanted. Also, note that quite a few of the videos are not in English. But since I usually ignore the announcers anyway, it doesn’t bother me.

If you have any other videos you’d like to add to this list, just put a description and the link in the comments. Just be aware that some sources may not be available outside of your region.

One other note. If you haven’t seen it, go to near the bottom of the list and watch the 1976 Olympic Women’s 4×100 Free Relay video. It’s hard now to describe the East German women’s dominance of that time, but they were unbeatable in almost every race. Almost.

2015 World Championships

I really wish I had more links for this meet. Hopefully some more races will get uploaded soon.

50 BR Women –   insanely close race between 5 women

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Spf23dsBSmM

50 BR Men – Adam Peaty WR in Semi-final

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsnWN8aP524

50 Fly Women – Sarah Sjostrom

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x30vbis

100 Free Men Semi-final – Ning Zetao – 1st time China wins this one

Couldn’t find an internationally available video of the final.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6ww6rm2VFI

100 FR women (Incredible Campbell sisters)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=II7M2hSVPTA

100 BK Men – Mitchell Larkin

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x30co1w

100 BK Women – Emily Seebohm

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x30cg6b

100 Fly Women – Sarah Sjostrum – World Record

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wo5lauEfGXw&list=PL5g3pqRHonlk-EjsYnn_V_4Zzr1rPcVAW&index=6

200 Free women – Katie Ledecky

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x30hfd2

200 IM men – Ryan Lochte

I watched this race live, but can’t find an international feed!

200 IM women – Katinka Hosszu – World Record (beats tech suit record by 0.03)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJdQXXtmUkE

4 x 100 MR men – if you ever had wondered if the other countries are starting to catch up to the US…

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x31046d_men-s-4x100m-medley-relay-final-world-championships-kazan-2015_sport

800 Free women – Katie Ledecky World Record!

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x30w0dd_women-s-800m-freestyle-katie-ledecky-8-07-39-world-record-kazan-2015_sport

Team Synchro – Spain

The Spanish team uses a Led Zeppelin song and some incredible athletics to win the team synchro competition

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ivR87oKyOo

2015 US Nat’l Championships – Michael Phelps

Normally I wouldn’t pay much attention to US Nationals when the Worlds are on at the same time. But, as usual, Phelps attracts attention.

200 Fly – Phelps

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVBk2jSv-wc

100 Fly – Phelps

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvKB5iJTiX4

200 IM – Phelps

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ts1Xpb6dfXg

2015 FISU Games

FISU – Men’s 200 Fly

Yuya Yajima of Japan – A new way to swim fly? (see my post here)

http://swimswam.com/evgney-koptelov-swims-worlds-2nd-fastest-200-butterfly-race-video/

2015 NCAA Div 1 Championships

The quality and selection of videos from the Div 1 finals was surprisingly poor. There were definitely other videos I wanted to see (e.g. Missy Franklin 200 Free)  Note to NCAA – The world wants to see these races! At least from a marketing point of view, please fix this!

M 4×50 yd FR Rel – Texas wins 1:15.86, NC DQd (2nd NC DQ that day, first one overturned)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WogVu0ZQGCs

M 200 yd IM David Nolan   1:39.38

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_p5cPU1wy4

M 50 yd FR Caeleb Dressel 18.67

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4hHK_WxJ1Y

M 4×100 Medley Relay – Texas 3:01.23

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwHG_KnNY1s

M 200 yd BK Ryan Murphy 1:36.77

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gzyUIEajn0

W 4×50 FR yd Relay – California 1:26.41

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7ZsLcYdLlo

W 4×100 yd Medley Relay – Stanford 3:26.41 (won by 0.01)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKaKAUGh5BU

W 100 yd Fly – Kelsi Worrell 49.81

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhy_9Ub5sbg

Other 2015

Andrew Seliskar – 200 yd BR

I like this one as you can see so clearly the incredible dolphin kick then pull out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=33&v=IUz1enSYvCU

Past Years

2012 London – Men’s 1500

Sun Yang destroys the field with a ridiculously fast time

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5FlDy3YmDQ

2012 London – Women’s 800 Free

Katie Ledecky starts her reign

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHbNKX3VkIM

2012 London – Men’s 200 Fly (race starts at about the 3:50 mark)

Chad Le Clos vs Michael Phelps

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGMoYB8ORYo

2012 London – Men’s 200 IM (race starts at the 3:30 mark)

Phelps vs Lochte

Lochte swims this 21 minutes after the 200 Back final

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTbbnhnnMQU

2012 London – Men’s 100 Free (race starts at the 3:10 mark)

Nathan Adrian vs James Magnussen

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VO7y41uBdUA

2012 London – Women’s 100 Breast (false start at 3:10, race starts at the 5:50 mark)

Ruta Meilutyte vs Rebecca Soni

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_mfkw5OFR4

2008 Beijing – Men’s 100 Fly (starts around 3:00 mark)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KLy-NnTD2o

2008 Beijing – Men’s 4×100 Men’s Relay

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxy920Nd7yY

2008 Beijing – Women’s 200 Free

Federica Pellegrini

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQ5at_4pQ1A

2008 Beijing – Men’s 200 Fly (starts at 2:19 mark)

Phelps swims with broken goggles

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0_qBQ0x1NE

2008 – Hill Taylor 50 m Underwater

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vox9KOxC1ZA

2005 World Championships Montreal

Ian Crocker vs Phelps 100 Fly ( I was there to see it!)

Grainy, but when was the last time you saw Phelps get destroyed in a 100 Fly?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02OV2TX5uQc

2000 Sydney – Men’s 4×100 Free Relay – US vs Australia (remember Air Guitar?)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaP_XlgUrdc

1996 Atlanta – Men’s 1500 – Kieren Perkins from Lane 8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPmkYBLHpqw

1996 Atlanta – Women’s 50 Free

Amy Van Dyken vs Le Jingyi

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBz8aIK-8JM

1992 Barcelona – 100 Back

Canadian Mark Tewksbury (Hey, I’m Canadian. Of course I like this!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTfTyzkSzQs

1988 Seoul – 100 Back – Suzuki vs Berkoff

Underwater kicking was brand new, and underwater strategies were all over the map in this race

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnjAfDaVkmY

Janet Evans 400 FR 1988 Olympics – World Record stood for 18 years

Can anyone find a video for this race? I remember seeing this once. She was magnificent!

1984 Los Angeles – Men’s 400 IM (race starts at the 2:30 mark)

Alex Baumann (Canada!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vis6IydD0QM

1984 Los Angeles – Women’s 200 Breast (race starts at 5:00 mark)

Anne Ottenbrite (Canada!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Su9wGXx3zwM

1984 Los Angeles – Men’s 200 Breast

Victor Davis (Canada, again!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5sXy7wxKW4

1976 Montreal – Women’s 4 x 100 Free Relay (race starts just after the 5:00 mark)

East Germany vs USA

In my mind one of the most exciting relays ever. The doped and overpowering E German women won every individual race except the 200 BR, going 1-2 in 5 individual races including the 100 FR.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LinqPGZPqUw

1972 Munich – compilation of Mark Spitz’s 7 Golds (notice they didn’t wear goggles)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TyXhi5I-TWs

1956 – Men’s 200 BR – almost all of it underwater

(Scroll down to the picture of 2 swimmers leaning on lane rope)

http://media.olympics.com.au/games/1956-melbourne/filter/aocVideo