it's often enough to define swipes as delta touch conditions. Here's a simplistic example:
[STATE1]
Get touch [touch event begins] (go to state2 on touch)
[STATE2]
get touch info (not every frame, save position to "start")
get touch info (every frame, save position to "current")
vector2 operator (current - start = deltaTouch)
touch event [ended] (go to state 3)
[STATE3]
normalize vector2
get vector2 xy
...then do a float compare split the vector2 direction into up, up right, right etc based on that. Alternatively you could also turn the vector2 direction into degrees and then compare those to your individual events. I just happened to have forgotten how to do that. Sinus is probably always a good approach I guess.