Which stroke is swum by the first swimmer in a 4 x 100 metre medley relay?

The correct answer is C, 50 metres. An Olympic-size or long course pool measures 50 metres in length and 25 metres in width, and all Olympic pool races are swum in it, so a 100 metre race means two lengths and the 1500 metre freestyle means thirty. Option A is wrong because 25 metres is the short course pool used for the World Short Course Championships and for most club meets; records set in it are listed separately from long course records. Option B is wrong because 33 metres matches no recognised standard, though pools of that rough size were used at some very early Olympic Games before the distance was fixed. Option D is wrong because no competition pool is 100 metres long; the 100 metre race is covered in two lengths of a long course pool. The width of 25 metres holds ten lanes of 2.5 metres each.

The correct answer is C, ten. A pool built to the long course standard is marked into ten lanes of 2.5 metres each across its 25 metre width. Only the eight middle lanes are used for racing; the two outside lanes are left empty so that the wash thrown up by the swimmers is absorbed rather than reflected back across the field. This is why a final has eight swimmers although the pool shows ten lanes, and why option B, eight, is the trap in this question: eight is the number of competitors and of racing lanes, not of lanes marked in the pool. Option A is wrong because six lane pools are common in schools and small clubs but not at this level. Option D is wrong because twelve lanes are not part of any aquatic standard. Lane ropes carry coloured floats to mark the last five metres before the wall.

The correct answer is B, butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke, freestyle. One swimmer covers all four strokes in that fixed sequence over 200 or 400 metres, and freestyle is always last. Option A is the order of the medley relay, not of the individual medley, and it is the commonest mistake on this question: in a relay the backstroke leg must come first because backstroke is the only stroke started in the water, so the first swimmer can begin from the wall while the others take flying starts. Option C is wrong because freestyle, the fastest stroke, is deliberately placed at the end of both medleys to make the finish the quickest part of the race. Option D is wrong because breaststroke, the slowest stroke, is swum third in the individual medley and second in the relay, never first. Remember the pair of orders together, since papers often ask them in the same set.

The correct answer is B, Arati Saha. The Bengali swimmer crossed the English Channel in September 1959, becoming the first woman from Asia to do so, and in 1960 she became the first Indian sportswoman to be awarded the Padma Shri. Option A is wrong but close enough to be the standard distractor: Bula Choudhury, also from Bengal, crossed the Channel three decades later and is remembered as the first woman to swim across the seven seas, a different record. Option C is wrong because Shikha Tandon is a pool swimmer, known for representing India at the 2004 Athens Olympics, not a Channel swimmer. Option D is wrong because Nisha Millet is likewise a pool and multi-national-medal swimmer of the same era. The male counterpart of this question is Mihir Sen, who crossed the Channel in 1958, a year before Arati Saha.

The correct answer is A, Mihir Sen. A lawyer from Bengal, he swam the English Channel in 1958 and went on to cross five major seas and straits in a single year, 1966, including the Palk Strait between India and Sri Lanka, the Strait of Gibraltar, the Dardanelles, the Bosphorus and the Panama Canal. He was honoured with the Padma Shri and later the Padma Bhushan. Option B is wrong because Taranath Shenoy was a celebrated deaf long-distance swimmer who crossed the Channel later and received the Padma Shri, but he was not the first Indian across. Option C is wrong because Sachin Nag was a pool sprinter who won the 100 metre freestyle at the first Asian Games in Delhi in 1951. Option D is wrong because Khazan Singh Tokas won a silver in the 200 metre butterfly at the 1986 Seoul Asian Games. The first person of any nationality to swim the Channel was Captain Matthew Webb in 1875.