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http://www.slate.com...in_london_.html
Justin Peters
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Posted Tuesday, Aug. 7, 2012, at 7:52 PM ET
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South Africa's Cameron van der Burgh celebrates after winning the men's 100m breaststroke final swimming event at the London 2012 Olympic Games.
Photo by CHRISTOPHE SIMON/AFP/GettyImages
It’s Tuesday, so another Olympian must have done something illegal. South African swimmer Cameron van der Burgh has admitted that he cheated in winning the 100-meter breaststroke last week. What was van der Burgh’s performance enhancer? Illegal “dolphin kicks.”
“Everybody does it—well, if not everybody, 99 percent of them,” van der Burgh told the Sydney Morning Herald, explaining his rationale for taking more than the one dolphin kick that’s permissible under the rules of the breaststroke. “If you’re not doing it you are falling behind and giving yourself a disadvantage.” What is a dolphin kick exactly, and why are swimming’s powers that be so eager to limit its use?
The dolphin kick, also known as the butterfly kick, dates back to 1935. Its originator was a collegiate swimmer named Jack Sieg, a transfer student from the University of the Ocean who came to terra firma to introduce us to his people’s amphibious ways. If you’ve ever seen an episode of Flipper, you know that dolphins propel themselves through the water by flapping their tails up and down. A dolphin kick mimics this movement.
