Gold Medal Swim

The Summer Olympics are nearly here and my favorite events are the swimming events: freestyle, backstroke, breaststroke, butterfly and the individual medley, a combination of all four.



Gold Medal Swim from the Jake Maddox sports series is a fictional account of competitive swimmers preparing for a freestyle competition. From the illustrations, it appears to be geared for the high school crowd although it is aimed for a younger audience.  

I give it high marks for its portrait of competitive swimming. Here is a sample:
"For the next two hours, Sam helped Julien practice swimming  laps. He showed Julien how to be sure to roll his whole body with each stroke."

Body roll is very important in freestyle.   The crawl is another name for this stroke.