Olympic swimming relay races?

In Olympic swimming relay races, i.e. 4x100m and 4x200m, how far does each member of the team actually swim?|||There are 3 relays in the Olympic games;


- 4x100m freestyle relay


- 4x200m freestyle relay


- 4x100m medley relay





On the 4x100m freestyle relay, there are 4 swimmers that each swim 100m (4 lengths in a 25m pool, 2 lengths in a 50m pool) each. They usually swim front crawl in this race, but freestyle means they can swim anything.





On the 4x200m freestyle relay, there are 4 swimmers that each swim 200m (8 lengths in a 25m pool, 4 lengths in a 50m pool) each. They also usually swim front crawl in this race, but freestyle means they can swim anything.





On the 4x100m medley relay, there are 4 swimmer that each swim 100m (4 lengths in a 25m pool, 2 lengths in a 50m pool) each. The 1st swimmer swims 100m backstroke, the 2nd swimmer swims 100m breaststroke, the 3rd swimmer swims 100m butterfly and the final swimmer swims 100m front crawl.|||That's what the x or "by" tells you.





In a 4x100m relay, 4 people each swim 100m. In a 4x200m relay, 4 people each swim 200m.





So the 4 is how many legs of the relay (basically, how many people participate) and the distance is the distance of each leg (how much they each swim).





A lot of swimmers refer to the entire relay as a total, so a 4x100 freestyle relay would just be called a 400 free relay, a 4x200 relay would be an 800, etc.