History
Prior to 1952, the individual medley, also known as IM, was swam as a three stroke medley. It consisted of backstroke, breaststroke, and freestyle. The race was either a 150m race or a 300m race. Although after the introduction of butterfly in 1952, the race now consisted of butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke, and freestyle, in that order.
At the 1964 Olympic games the 400m was contested for both men and women for the first time and have been swam at every Olympic games since then. However the 200m was first contested in 1968 and 1972, it didn’t become a consistent event at every games until 1984. The IM races are the only ones the have been contested over the same distances at the same time for men and women. The events were introduced at the same Olympic games for each gender.
Modern Individual Medley
The individual medley is one of the more difficult events to be successful at because, if a swimmer has a weak stroke, then they will fall too far behind to be competitive. Most of the time, those who are good at breaststroke are also good IMers because of where it falls in the race. Breaststroke is in the middle of the race, where they are the most tired, so if they are good breaststroke they can pull ahead. The lead changes during a race are the most prominent in this event because it is a combination of all the strokes and each person has a stroke that they are better at then the others.
Why breaststroke is the most important stroke of IM races