Purpose. T he a uthors tried to p oint o ut t he c rucial f actors d eterm ining swimm ing results in a 2 000m f ront c rawl r ace. Basic procedures. Two groups of subjects: G1 (16.8 ± 0.77 years) and G2 (14.7 ± 0.49 years) of 15 swimmers each took part in two incremental tests for assessing aerobic endurance of arms in arm cranking (VO2max AR) and of legs in cycling (VO2max LG). The applied procedure made it possible to simultaneously determine the anaerobic threshold AT (WL LT AR and WL LT LG) and the maximal oxygen uptake [l . min-1] (VO2max AR and VO2max LG). The 2000m front crawl race was recorded by means of a digital camcorder. On the basis of analysis of two complete cycles of swimming strokes, the stroke rate (SR), arm coordination index (IdC) and stroke phases (E, PL, PS, R) were computed. Main findings. The results of the hierarchic regression analysis showed that the factors connected with the front crawl technique, especially the coordination index (IdC) and stroke rate (SR), played a significant role among all the determinants of swimming velocity. On the other hand, no significant influence of stroke length (SL) on swimming velocity was found. Among the examined physiological indices swimming velocity was dependent only on the anaerobic threshold level (WL LT AR). Conclusions. Swimming velocity over the 2000m distance is determined mostly by the stroke rate (SR), coordination index (IdC) and anaerobic threshold level (WL LT AR).
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