It seems that swimming competitors are permitted to use any stroke they want in 'freestyle' events. However, why are the organisers of such events not permitted to hold the event in a fluid of their choosing?Swimming competitions could become full of strategy and techniques for dealing with different fluids.Before anyone else says it though, what I forsee is that in the same way that the crawl has become the choice of all swimmers for the 'freestyle', the choice of swimming medium for all organisers of competitions will be... custard.-- hippo, Jun 13 2001 Swimming in beer http://www.homepage...e/gpacw/default.htmDakota State's choice. [angel, Jun 13 2001, last modified Oct 21 2004] Vickie Dixon http://www2.arts.gl...d/PRACTIC/DIXON.HTMSomeone who claims to be a keen custard-swimmer [hippo, Jun 13 2001, last modified Oct 21 2004] Slazenger http://www.slazenge...imbledon/factsheet/Slazenger reckon 12,500 bottles of champagne are needed to fill a swimming pool [hippo, Jun 13 2001, last modified Oct 21 2004] Swimming in syrup http://www.nature.c...pf/040920-2_pf.htmlMore drag + more force = same time [imaginality, Jul 24 2007] I forgot to mention: The effect of custard's alleged thixotropic properties could be interesting too.-- hippo, Jun 13 2001 [UnaBubba] Thanks - I had a vague idea that this had been discussed before and that thixotropic was the wrong word. I knew someone would correct me! Damn you [waugsqueke]!! Is *everything* on the HalfBakery now? :-)-- hippo, Jun 13 2001 100m unleaded petrol pool. no smoking.-- benfrost, Jun 14 2001 I like the beer pool, but I'd like to see someone swim 100 m in mercury. Not sure it's possible.-- Dog Ed, Jun 14 2001 Staying afloat would not be a problem (SG=13.546). Poisoning might be.-- angel, Jun 14 2001 angel: Yeah, maybe a full-coverage rubber suit would be mandatory. Think a swimmer could get a hand far enough down into the liquid to take a decent stroke? And pressure...let's see, if you pushed your hand .5 m into the mercury the pressure on the member would be equal to the pressure under 6.5 m of water, right?-- Dog Ed, Jun 14 2001 Tangential to this discussion: The Miro museum in Barcelona has a mercury fountain. It took me a minute to realise that it wasn't water...-- hippo, Jun 14 2001 It's in a glass case (fortunately).-- angel, Jun 14 2001 I think, for the ultimate decadence (and to really put the style in Freestyle) why not 100m in a pool of 1966 Chateau Laffitte? The only issue I can see is whether there is enough 66 left in the world to fill the pool - what the hell - let's allow any vintage before 1990, eh?-- goff, Jun 14 2001 Swimming in champagne could be an interesting sensation...-- hippo, Jun 19 2001 true Hippo. May I suggest the Krug 88 or the Bollinger Grand Annee 1990? very nice. Have a feeling I'd probably end up swallowing a lot though, you know cos I'm not that good a swimmer (honest)...-- goff, Jun 20 2001 chocolate sauce!!-- ninjafishcake, Jun 23 2003 mint chocolate milk!-- silverstormer, Jun 23 2003 Minestrone soup.-- saker, Jun 23 2003 Blood with anti colagnative ( or whatever it's called )-- my-nep, Oct 31 2003 Hey! What's with the fishies! did they reverse the images or something?!?-- my-nep, Oct 31 2003 Yes-- hippo, Nov 01 2003 Just run on the custard.-- Texticle, Jul 24 2007 Caramel. One end of the pool markedly warmer than the other.-- lurch, Jul 24 2007 Someone did an experiment where they got some good swimmers to swim in a syrup-substitute-filled pool (see linkathon); swimming through syrup turned out to be no more or less easy than swimming through water.-- imaginality, Jul 24 2007 Nice link [imaginality]. I wonder if the result would hold for non-liquid swimming media - e.g. how hard would it be to swim through a pool of table tennis balls?-- hippo, Jul 25 2007 random, halfbakery