Front Crawl or Freestyle?

Front Crawl or Freestyle?

Well, Crawl or Front Crawl is not officially regulated by FINA. However this is the fastest front stroke and the one used for the Freestyle events. According to FINA, Freestyle means the swimmer can swim any style, except for the individual medley events or medely relay events.

Because it is the fastest stroke, swimmers usually use it for the freestyle events, so it became a metonymy for front crawl.

These are the definitions according to: FINA and Wikipedia

• SW 5 FREESTYLE
  Swimming Rules
  
  SW 5.1 Freestyle means that in an event so designated the swimmer may swim any style, except that in individual medley or medley relay events, freestyle means any style other than backstroke, breaststroke or butterfly.
  
  SW 5.2 Some part of the swimmer must touch the wall upon completion of each length and at the finish.
  
  SW 5.3 Some part of the swimmer must break the surface of the water throughout the race, except it shall be permissible for the swimmer to be completely submerged during the turn and for a distance of not more than 15 metres after the start and each turn. By that point, the head must have broken the surface.

• Front Crawl
  
  The front crawl or forward crawl is a swimming stroke usually regarded as the fastest of the four front primary strokes.[1] As such, the front crawl stroke is nearly universally used during a freestyle swimming competition, hence freestyle is used metonymically for the front crawl. It is one of two long axis strokes, the other one being the backstroke. Unlike the backstroke, the butterfly stroke, and the breaststroke, the front crawl is not regulated by the FINA. This style is sometimes referred to as the Australian crawl or the American crawl, although these can refer to more specific variants of front crawl.

Kangas

Sources: FINA,Wikipedia