Too many medals for swimming?

[bibblebub]

Anyone else think that there are too many medals awarded for swimming at multi-sport gatherings such as the Commonwealth Games or the Olympics? It gives swimming too much of a weighting when it comes to the overall medal table.

The other main sport with multiple distance events is athletics but they don't have separate races for running backwards, hopping on the left foot or any other silly category, just the standard running forward type of racing.

For swimming, instead of having medals for each stroke separately, either the races for each distance should be medley only, or award points for each of the 4 strokes (freestyle, breast, backstroke, butterfly) and the winner at each distance is the one with most points from the 4 races for that distance.

[ummmm]

I use to compete when I was younger. I was good at freestyle and butterfly but very good at breaststroke and backstroke.

[bibblebub]

So if the overall winner at a distance was based on all 4 strokes then you would have been in with a great chance.

[ummmm]

But if someone was good at 3 or all 4 then not so good a chance.

[bibblebub]

But you'd be better than someone who specialises in just one of them.

Perhaps the overall medal table shouldn't just be a count of medals but should reflect the number achieved out of the number contested.