1 Swimming Is as Old as the Stone Age An ancient mosaic of a swimmer in Rome People have been swimming for thousands of years Swimmers are shown in cave paintings from the Stone Age that were discovered in Libya and Egypt The great thinker Plato said that people who couldn’t swim were uneducated And swimming races were held in Japan as far back as the first century Swimming was also a skill in ancient Greece and Rome Young men were taught to swim as part of their education and military training 4 Swimming was a good skill for soldiers to have since many battles were fought in or near water So many soldiers drowned during the Napoleonic
A public swimming pool in France 1884 Wars in the early 1800s that nations began to add swimming to training classes for soldiers By 1837 there were public swimming pools in London Australia and the US followed Today most communities and many homes and schools have swimming pools The British women’s relay swim team won the gold medal at the 1912 Olympics 1896 Year the first modern Olympics was held Races were held in open water in 1896 1900 and 1904 Women did not compete in Olympic swimming until 1912 Swimming is one of only five sports to be in every summer Olympic Games 5
2 The Sport Is Always Changing The Olympic Games in Athens Greece in 1896 Swimming competitions today are very different than those of the past The 1896 Olympics featured only four swimming events All were held in the open sea Three of the events were open to all men One was only for sailors in the Greek Royal Navy 6 The 1900 Olympics featured an obstacle course Swimmers had to climb over a pole climb over a row of boats and then swim under another row of boats That event was never held again Swimming strokes have also changed Early swimmers used the breaststroke and
One of the swimming events at the 1904 Olympics in Germany the sidestroke Later the crawl became popular This stroke was used by Pacific Islanders Swimmers from Australia took the crawl to Europe 35 Distance in meters 115 ft swam underwater by David Berkoff at the start of a race at the 1988 Olympics Berkoff achieved a big lead because of his fast underwater start One announcer called the feat the Berkoff Blastoff After the race a rule was passed saying swimmers could stay underwater for only the first 10 meters 33 ft of a race FINA RULES The Federation Internationale de Natation de Amateur FINA was founded in 1908 FINA creates rules for all swimming competitions It started with just eight member countries All were in Europe Today there are 207 members from five continents David Berkoff at the Barcelona Olympic Games 1992 7
