EVERYONE FOR THEMSELVES: CHAOS AT THE WARM-UP POOLS AT OLYMPICS

TOKYO: Cate Campbell was a 17-year-old swimming phenomenon when she learned the dangers of warm-up at major competitions the hard way.

That’s what a head-on collision with Michael Phelps will do for you. “He was doing a sprint butterfly down the wrong side of the lane. Straight into me doing backstroke,” Campbell recalled about the incident at the 2009 world championships in Rome. “There was a lot of velocity and power in that. He swims really fast, apparently.” Campbell came away with three vertebrae compacted in her neck — which was rendered practically immobile — and a big lump on her head.

Now entering her fourth Olympics with five medals to her name, Campbell knows the most important rule of warmup.

“Everyone for themselves,” she said in a recent interview. “Sometimes it is honestly a nightmare. … You’re touching the people in front of you, their feet, and someone’s touching your feet. Everyone’s swimming over the breaststrokers, who are a real hazard.”

With hundreds of swimmers scrambling to get their warm-up done at the same time, multiple athletes in each lane, everyone diving over one another and some competitors using snorkels, kickboards and other paraphernalia, warm-up is organized chaos. It’s swimming’s version of Shibuya Crossing, the famous Tokyo intersection where thousands of people hurry every which way at once.

Amid a pandemic, warm-up could be considered a health hazard. “At this point, we’ve gotten comfortable being in a large crowd,” said American swimmer Zach Harting, who will race the 200m butterfly.

While it’s not a rule that’s strictly enforced, swimming governing body FINA suggests that only the athletes competing each morning or evening warm up in the competition pool in the 90 minutes before each session. Other swimmers can go to a nearby warmup pool — which is usually just as chaotic.

In Saturday’s opening session, there are 26 different heats in six different events, including the women’s 4x100m freestyle relay. That could amount to nearly 300 swimmers warming up at once.