9 Fun Facts About Swimming
1. Competitive swimming dates back to the 1830’s in England. Six pools built around London held regular competitions under the umbrella of the National Swimming Society.
2. The first four times swimming was contested at the Olympic level competitors raced in open water, not pools. The Mediterranean was host in 1896 and 1906, while the Seine River hosted in 1900 and an artificial lake in 1904.
3. Swimming’s governing body FINA was founded in 1908 and with it the formal recognition and recording of World Records.
4. Some of the first written references to swimming date back to 2000 BC. The works include Beowulf, the Iliad and the Odyssey, the Bible and the Quran.
5. Paintings from over 10,000 years ago found in caves depict Stone Age swimming. The cave is known as the Cave of Swimmers and is located in the Libyan Desert. The cave is mentioned in the 1996 movie The English Patient.
6. Life vests had da Vinci origins. He made sketches of things he called lifebelts.
7. Women first competed in the Olympics for swimming in 1912.
8. In 1935 men’s swimsuits became topless, funny how now we are back to body suits!
9. The rule limiting underwater dolphin kick in butterfly events to 15 meters was adopted in 1998.
