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If you read the article there is more to it than just staying under water. The stroke is basically like the dolphin kick on your side. They mention that it may be more efficient because you are able to pull in more water laterally than vertically due to not breaking the surface of the water, or having vortices hit the ground. It would be interesting to see if this could actually impact swimmers in other lanes.

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Most racing pools are deep enough that you can do it vertically and not have to worry excessively about either the surface of the water or the pool bottom.

Plus, if you tried to do this in a race horizontally, you'd be fighting against the vortexes of your competitors, which would make the attempt even more rough and inefficient (for the leader as well).

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