What Is the Individual Medley in Swimming? Order, Distances & Rules

The individual medley (IM) is a swimming race in which one athlete swims all four competitive strokes — butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke, and freestyle — in that exact order, each covering an equal share of the total distance. No other event in the sport asks a single swimmer to master every stroke discipline in one continuous race, which is why the IM is often called swimming’s ultimate all-around test.

The Fixed Stroke Order — And Why It Never Changes

World Aquatics rules lock the IM sequence to: butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke, freestyle. A swimmer who swims the strokes out of order, even accidentally, is disqualified — there’s no exception.

The order isn’t arbitrary. It reflects both physiology and transition mechanics:

• Butterfly is first because it’s the most physically demanding of the four competitive strokes, draining shoulders and lungs fastest. Swimmers tackle it while they’re fresh, when they can still generate the double-arm recovery and dolphin kick it requires.
• Backstroke is second partly because finishing butterfly face-down at the wall makes it natural to flip onto the back for the next leg, and because backstroke is comparatively less taxing than what comes right after it.
• Breaststroke is third — it’s the slowest stroke and the easiest to swim in a fatigued state, since its glide phase gives swimmers a moment to recover between pulls.
• Freestyle is last because it’s the fastest, least technical stroke. Any swimmer can hold form on tired legs and arms using freestyle (almost always swum as front crawl), so it lets even exhausted athletes close the race at full speed.

This order is unique to the individual medley. A medley relay — where four different swimmers each take one stroke — uses a different sequence (backstroke, breaststroke, butterfly, freestyle) because relay legs start with an in-water push-off rather than a racing dive, and backstroke is the only stroke that legally starts in the water.

IM Race Distances: 100, 200, and 400

The individual medley is contested at three standard distances, and each one splits evenly across the four strokes.

Event	Total Distance	Per-Stroke Distance	Pool Type
100 IM	100 yards/meters	25 each	Short course (25m/25yd) only
200 IM	200 yards/meters	50 each	Short course and long course (50m)
400 IM	400 yards/meters	100 each	Short course and long course (50m)

The 100 IM exists only in short-course pools because it requires just one length per stroke — there isn’t enough room to swim it in a 50-meter long-course pool. The 200 IM and 400 IM are both contested in long course and are Olympic events; the 400 IM has been on the Olympic program since 1964, while the 200 IM was added in 1968, dropped for a decade, and restored permanently in 1984.

How the Turns Work Between Strokes

Each stroke-to-stroke transition has to satisfy that stroke’s own turn rule, not a special “medley turn”:

1. Butterfly to backstroke — the swimmer must touch the wall with both hands simultaneously (butterfly’s normal finish/turn rule), then rotate onto the back before pushing off.
2. Backstroke to breaststroke — the swimmer must remain on the back until touching the wall, then may either do a simple one-hand touch-and-rotate or execute a “crossover” flip turn that rotates the body face-down before the feet leave the wall.
3. Breaststroke to freestyle — like every breaststroke touch, this requires a simultaneous two-hand touch on the wall before pushing off into freestyle.
4. Within freestyle — this is the only leg of the IM where any turn style is legal, so swimmers use standard flip turns to save time.

Getting these transitions right is often the difference between a good IM swimmer and a great one — a fumbled breaststroke-to-freestyle turn alone can cost several tenths of a second.

Step-by-Step: How a 200 IM Race Actually Unfolds

1. Start — a forward racing dive, same as any freestyle or breaststroke event.
2. Butterfly leg (50m) — swimmers go out hard but not all-out, since three more strokes remain; a two-hand touch ends the leg.
3. Backstroke leg (50m) — a rollover turn (often a crossover) transitions into backstroke; swimmers must stay on their back to the finish, again ending with a two-hand touch.
4. Breaststroke leg (50m) — typically the tactical leg, where pacing and stroke efficiency matter more than raw power; ends with a simultaneous two-hand touch.
5. Freestyle leg (50m) — the closing sprint, where fatigue is highest but stroke rules are loosest, so swimmers empty the tank using flip turns and a fast front-crawl finish.
6. Finish — a two-hand touch (per the freestyle-finish requirement that applies to the final stroke of the race).

Famous Individual Medley Swimmers

• Michael Phelps (USA) — won Olympic gold in the 200 IM at four consecutive Games (2004, 2008, 2012, 2016), the first swimmer ever to four-peat a single event. He also held the men’s 400 IM world record for 15 years, from Beijing 2008 until 2023.
• Léon Marchand (France) — broke Phelps’ long-standing 400 IM world record in 2023 (4:02.50) and won Olympic gold in both the 200 IM and 400 IM at the Paris 2024 Games in front of a home crowd.
• Katinka Hosszú (Hungary) — nicknamed “The Iron Lady,” she became the first swimmer, male or female, to hold world records in all five individual medley events simultaneously, and her 2015 world record in the 200 IM (2:06.12) still stands.

Why the IM Is Considered Swimming’s Toughest Test

Coaches often call the individual medley the sport’s truest measure of an all-around swimmer. A pure sprinter can hide a weak breaststroke in a freestyle race; in the IM, that weakness is on full display for one full leg of the race, with no way to substitute a stronger stroke. Pacing matters enormously too — a swimmer who burns too much energy going out fast on butterfly has nothing left to close hard on freestyle. That combination of technical range and race-management skill is exactly why IM specialists like Phelps, Hosszú, and Marchand are regarded among the most complete athletes in the sport.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the individual medley in swimming? It’s a race where one swimmer completes all four competitive strokes back to back in a single continuous swim, with each stroke covering an equal fraction of the total race distance.

What is the correct stroke order? Butterfly, then backstroke, then breaststroke, then freestyle — fixed by World Aquatics rules for every distance.

Why butterfly first and freestyle last? Butterfly is the most demanding stroke, so it’s swum while fresh; freestyle is the fastest and least technical, letting a tired swimmer still finish at speed.

What are the standard IM distances? 100 IM (short course only), 200 IM, and 400 IM, each splitting the distance evenly across the four strokes.

How do the turns between strokes work? Each transition follows that stroke’s own turn rule — two-hand touches for butterfly and breaststroke legs, an on-the-back finish for backstroke, and any turn style once freestyle begins.

How is the IM different from a medley relay? The IM is one swimmer doing all four strokes in butterfly-backstroke-breaststroke-freestyle order; a medley relay uses four swimmers in a different order (backstroke-breaststroke-butterfly-freestyle).

Who holds the IM world records? Léon Marchand holds the men’s 400m and 200m IM world records; Katinka Hosszú holds the women’s 200m IM world record.