Hambantota 2011

Aquatics is made up of all sport activities in water (swimming, Water polo, diving and synchronized swimming) this are events that take place in water and have deferent rules.

Swimming: is based on speed in water, there are deferent events like free style, breast stroke, back stroke and butterfly.

The free style races are 50, 100, 200, 400, 800, 1500 and 10 000 meters. The 1500 meters is only for men and the 800 meters is only for women. The breast stroke and the back stroke are 100and 200 meters events the 200 and 400 meters have all four strokes (back stroke, breast stroke, butter fly and free style).

The race is completed by 4 x 100 meter freestyle, 4 x 200 meter freestyle and 4 x 100meter medley relays.

The qualifiers of the preliminary heat in the 50, 100 and 200 meters move to the semi-finals and finals. In the relay and individual events of 400m and above, the eight fastest finishers move directly to the finals, and all the decisions are based on the fastest times.

Water polo: has two post at each end of the pool with a total of thirteen players on each team and only six player and one goal keeper can be in the water at a time from each team.

The men's event are divided into two pools of six for a round-robin preliminary heat, this is for the qualifying teams, the top four from each pool advance to the quarter-finals and the quarter final winners advance to the medal rounds.

The women team play a round-robin preliminary heat, with four teams advancing to the semi finals, and the two teams that fail to qualify, play for the fifth and sixth place.

Diving: is performed from a high platform above a pool and divers hit the water from this high platform with a speed of up to 55km/h.

Points are awarded up to 10 points depending on the elegance and skill. The points are affected by the degree of difficulty. Which is based on the number and times of the maneuvers attempted like surmersult, spikes, tucks and twists. They are judged by a panel of selected judges.

Synchronized swimming: it looks effortless but it is a high demanding sport that requires grace, endurance, flexibility, artistry and an exceptional breath control.

The competitors perform strenuous movement upside down in water with help of a nose clip that makes it difficult for water to enter the nose and allowing the swimmer to stay under water for long period of time.

This sport is open only to women performing to music within a time limit and an underwater speakers to help the competitors when they are underwater to enable them achieve the split second timing critical to synchronize swimming.

Swimmers are judged by panel of judges, they perform specific moves in a set order, including boost, rocket, thrusts and twirls.