Go watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1g7oRASpJO0
When he returned home to South Africa, he admitted to the press that he had cheated by adding in dolphin kicks at the start (3 dolphin kicks with the pullouts) and finish (1 dolphin kick into the final wall to finish).
There's a video of the dolphin into the finish: http://www.swimmingworldmagazine.com/lane9/news/World/31435.asp
Here's a video showing the current legal breaststroke pullout with the 2 options of timing on the dolphin kick, early and late.
"It's got to the sort of point where if you're not doing it you're falling behind or your giving yourself a disadvantage so everyone's pushing the rules and pushing the boundaries, so if you're not doing it, you're not trying hard enough," van der Burgh told the Sydney Morning Herald. He added that "99 percent" of the swimmers are taking advantage of the rule allowing dolphin kicks by adding more at the start or implementing them where not allowed.
"If you're not doing it, you're falling behind. It's not obviously -- shall we say -- the moral thing to do, but I'm not willing to sacrifice my personal performance and four years of hard work for someone that is willing to do it and get away with it," van der Burgh said in the article.
What do you think?
Should we tell kids that this is happening and show them what Olympians are doing, including the techniques for cheating?
Is a discussion useful on the ethics and morals in competing?
Is it really cheating or is it just smart? After all, when Kitajima first added a dolphin kick in 2004, the rules were changed to allow it after that. Is the allowing of multiple dolphin kicks in breaststroke just part of the evolution of a stroke?
How does a world record feel to you if you deliberately cheated?
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