Take all four strokes, put them together and what do you have? The ultimate test – the individual medley.
The shorter race over four lengths is a sprint with no margin for error, the longer distance allows for more tactics and room to overcome a weaker stroke.
Katinka Hosszu is the world champion over both distances. The Hungarian is quite appropriately known as the ‘Iron Lady’.
The 25-year-old competes in multi-events and at the last World Short-Course Championships in Doha at the end of 2014, she came away with eight medals, four of them gold.
Not for Katinka the need for recovery time but instead she just dives straight back in – whether it be in the IM, the butterfly or the freestyle.
Katinka was taught to swim and subsequently coached by her grandfather and she remembers how she came to take up the medley.
“The way I remember the story happening, and my grandfather might say I am way off, was that in the beginning of my competitive swimming career I swam everything since I didn’t have a speciality and I just enjoyed racing.
“At the first competition that offered a 400IM for my age group I swam it and on the first try I broke the national age group record. Basically I was hooked.”
Like Katinka, Hannah Miley also swims a gruelling multi-event schedule which…
