Learning How to Fly
Learning a new swim stroke: the butterfly, what makes it unique, and top performers in this category in the World Aquatic Championships, Singapore 2025.
It takes a special kind of self-tormentor to want to swim the butterfly.
Not only is it the most powerful and physically demanding stroke in swimming, but it requires its victim to master coordination between hands, legs and body to the point where one resembles a dolphin flying in and out of the water. So if you’re anything like me—has two left feet, little to no athleticism and a strong penchant for self-torment—consider this an experiment. If in 1 month from now I can successfully swim the 50m butterfly, you can too.
For context, I live in one of the most rain-abundant states in India: Goa, and for nearly 6 months of the year, when most other sports come to a crashing halt due to mossy, wet courts and slippery tracks, swimmers persist. After all, the only way to keep yourself physically active in the middle of the monsoons is to get drenched before the rain drenches you. This was the first reason why I decided to take swimming lessons. The second reason is because I wanted to learn how to ‘fly’.
Before we get into this article, if you’re unfamiliar with the butterfly, I highly recommend watching this video of Canada’s Summer Mcintosh swimming the 200 metre ‘fly’ (watch from 0:10 onwards). It might explain what I mean by “resembles a dolphin flying in and out of the water”.
Two months into being bested by the freestyle, the backstroke and the breaststroke, I’m slowly easing my way into learning what I think is the sexiest category of the four—the butterfly.
To many, the stroke is considered ‘show-offy, aggressive and galumphing’ and, interestingly, has been banned from many pools in England because its wide strokes and turbulent wave-forming motion disrupts other lanes. But to quote this article from the NewYorker:
"To watch Olympic swimmers do the butterfly is to witness a metamorphosis: half-human, half-fish, wholly mesmerizing.”
The butterfly is widely considered to be the toughest stroke to swim out of all four requiring one to throw one’s arms forward, repeatedly propelling one’s body to fly out of the water, while also simultaneously maintaining a fluid dolphin kick with each arm movement.
It is visually stunning, and is an incredible display of athleticism. However, it takes a high amount of energy and coordination making it the only stroke that cannot be executed at varying intensities. The mechanics of the stroke make it very difficult to swim at a slow pace. You have to give it everything you’ve got, each time. The faster you ‘fly’, the easier it feels. For this reason, one will only ever see professional swimmers swim the butterfly because it is the least efficient way to swim out of all 4 strokes outside of the competitive arena.
Recently, the swim world wrapped up its largest annual meet: the World Aquatic Championships or ‘World’s’ in Singapore. Some of the most exciting races in the women’s category took place in the 50m, 100m and 200m fly and featured some of my favourite swimmers. Here is a look at the top performers in these categories for 2025.
50 metre Fly
Gretchen Walsh won her first gold of the event with a time of 24.83 seconds. She missed beating her own world record of 24.02 seconds set last year at the same event by 0.81. seconds. Alexandria Perkins of Australia took silver with a time of 25.31. Roos Vanotterdijk from Belgium took bronze with 25.43.
100 metre Fly
Some familiar names: Gretchen Walsh of the USA won her second gold with a time of 54.73 seconds, setting a new championship record. Roos Vanotterdijk from Belgium took silver with a time of 55.84, and Alexandria Perkins of Australia earned bronze with 56.33.
200 metre Fly
Summer Mcintosh of Canada (my favourite swimmer) won her third gold medal in the meet in the 200m fly setting a championship record, and falling short of breaking the world record of 2:01.81, set by Liu Zige in 2009, but narrowly missed it by 0.18 seconds with a time of 2:01.99. After Summer, Reagan Smith of Canada claimed the silver in the 200m butterfly with a time of 2:04.99, followed by Elizabeth Dekkers with a time of 2:06.12.
Mcintosh was visibly disappointed after the race because she was looking to set a new world record and missed it by a hair. She was also enroute to collecting 5 gold medals in 5 different events this World’s—a feat only performed by Phelps and Sjöström—but fell short of one due to her bronze medal in the 800m losing only to the legends Katie Ledecky and Lani Pallister. Summer had painted her nails in red and gold in anticipation of the meet—5 red nails for Canada, and 5 golden nails for the 5 golds she was hoping to collect.
While she fell short of one, Summer McIntosh became only the second female swimmer in history to win 4 gold medals at a single world championship event and just the third swimmer ever to win five individual medals.
Those are all the updates from the butterfly events this World’s! Stay tuned to see if my experiment is successful, or if I end up with a shoulder injury. Until then, check out top performers in other categories on the World Aquatic Championships website here.
I, too, think it is show-offy, aggressive, and galumphing because I can't do it.
please update in 1 month about your 50m butterfly journey🙏🏼