Facts About Competitive Swimming
Competitive swimming took more than a century to reach its current incarnation. The British, in 1844, relied on the breast stroke, which was considered a more genteel stroke than the crawl. New strokes were created, such as the butterfly and backstroke. Swimming stars like Johnny Weissmuller, Janet Evans, Dara Torres and Michael Phelps have all made strong contributions to the sport, either in their training methods or competitive winning times.
Other People Are Reading
-
Significance
-
Ancient people, from the Greeks to Plato, held swimming in high regard. Plato is said to have considered the man who could not swim to be "uneducated" (see Resources).
American Victory
-
At the 1924 Olympics, Johnny Weissmuller beat Duke Kahanamoku, a Hawaiian, using the freestyle stroke. Weissmuller popularized swimming, winning three medals at the 1924 Games and two more at the 1928 games (see Resources).
-
Evolution
-
The backstroke became an Olympic competitive swim event in 1900; female Olympic athletes began competing in the freestyle competition in 1912. The butterfly appeared at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics.
Risky Method
-
Breaststrokers used to swim underwater as long as they possibly could, which contributed to the early situations when swimmers either fainted in the water or finished so short of air they were almost blue when they came out of the water (see Resources).
Famous Swimmers
-
Famous swimmers include Michael Phelps, who has won more Olympic medals than any other Olympian in history; Dara Torres, who competed at the age of 41 in the 2008 Beijing Olympics; Janet Evans, who competed in the Olympics as a young teenager and won gold medals in 1988 in Seoul, South Korea and in Barcelona, Spain.
-
