Olympic Swimming – An Overview

Evidence of people swimming for sport dates all the way back to Ancient Egyptian and Ancient Greek times. Now hugely popular around the world as a leisure activity and a competitive sport, Swimming has featured at every modern Games and remains a real Olympic crowd-pleaser.
The basics

There are four strokes used in Olympic competition: Freestyle (essentially, front crawl), Backstroke, Breaststroke and Butterfly. All four strokes feature in the Individual Medley and Medley Relay events.

Olympic races are conducted over a variety of distances, from 50m (one length of the pool) all the way up to 1500m. All the pool events begin with heats, with the best swimmers from the qualifying rounds eventually racing for gold in the final.
Olympic Swimming, past and present

At the first few modern Olympic Games, Swimming events were held in open water. At Paris in 1900, for instance, they took place in the River Seine. However, the rules were formalised in 1908, when the London Games staged the first Olympic Swimming competition to be held in a pool.

Other than the Marathon Swimming 10km event, held in the Serpentine within Hyde Park, the Swimming competition will take place in the dazzling Aquatics Centre, built in the Olympic Park especially for London 2012.

Jargon buster

Long course: A 50m pool of the type used in Olympic competition, as opposed to a short course measuring 25m.
Medley: A combination event in which a swimmer or team swims separate legs of backstroke, breaststroke, butterfly and freestyle.
Negative split: When an athlete swims the second half of a race faster than the first half.
Open turn: A type of turn for which swimmers must touch the end of the pool with their hands.
Tumble turn: An underwater roll at the end of a lap, which allows swimmers to push off from the end of the pool with their feet

The best place to start swimming is at your local pool. You can search for the one closest to you at Active Places. If you want to know more about clubs, facilities and coaching schemes in your area, contact British Swimming, Scottish Swimming, Swim Wales or Swim Ulster. The International Swimming Federation has information on international competition, while the Swimfit website can offer advice on swimming fitness programmes.