97 Fun Facts About Swimming

Which Founding Father made wooden fins for his hands as a boy so he could swim faster?

Benjamin Franklin gripped each oval pallet through a thumb hole, but by his own account they fatigued his wrists.

Which American swimmer won seven golds at Munich 1972, each in world-record time?

Mark Spitz, who is Jewish, was put under guard after the Munich massacre that followed his races, and was hurried out of the Games for his safety.

In December 2022 the aquatic sports governing body FINA rebranded under what name?

FINA, which stood for Federation Internationale de Natation, became World Aquatics in December 2022 to reflect all aquatic disciplines, not just swimming.

Which Olympic swimming champion of 1912 and 1920 helped spread surfing around the world?

Duke Kahanamoku also used his surfboard in 1925 to rescue eight people from a capsized fishing boat at Newport Beach, California.

What is the standard length of an Olympic-size swimming pool?

50 meters is the long-course standard; Paris 2024's pool was only about 2.2 m deep, and some blamed the shallow water for slower times.

The 1900 Olympic swimming races were held in which river?

The Seine hosted an obstacle race in which swimmers had to climb over one row of boats and swim under another.

Which swimwear brand grew out of a Sydney hosiery company founded in 1914?

Speedo took its name in 1928 from a staff contest won by the slogan 'Speed on in your Speedos', and the firm became Speedo Knitting Mills.

In what order are the four strokes swum in an individual medley?

Butterfly, Backstroke, Breaststroke, Freestyle is the order, and the freestyle leg must be a stroke other than the first three, so swimmers finish with front crawl.

Which swimmer won the women's 800 m freestyle at four consecutive Olympics, 2012 to 2024?

Katie Ledecky was 15 when she won in London, leaving defending champion Rebecca Adlington, racing at home, with bronze.

Which Romantic poet swam the Hellespont in 1810, recreating the legendary swim of Leander?

Lord Byron crossed from Europe to Asia and later worked the feat, and Leander, into his long poem Don Juan.

What name did synchronized swimming officially adopt when it was renamed in 2017?

Artistic Swimming became the name in 2017 so the sport's title would reflect judging on choreography and artistic expression, not just synchronisation.

At Montreal 1976, which country's women won 11 of 13 swimming events, a haul later tied to state doping?

East Germany's coaches gave swimmers steroids without telling them what they were; star Kornelia Ender said she never learned what her injections contained.

Which item are synchronized swimmers banned from wearing in their competition routines?

Swim goggles are off limits, while hair is set in a bun with gelatin so the costume headpiece stays put in the water.

Which Olympic host city's swimming venue, clad in plastic bubbles, was nicknamed the 'Water Cube'?

Beijing's Water Cube later swapped water for ice, hosting the curling events at the 2022 Winter Olympics.

The 'Cave of Swimmers' at Wadi Sura, with figures in swimming poses, is in which country?

Egypt's Cave of Swimmers, found by explorer László Almásy in 1933, features in The English Patient, though the film used a recreated set.

Flip turns are usually seen in races of which two strokes?

Freestyle and backstroke allow flip turns, because butterfly and breaststroke rules demand a simultaneous two-hand touch at every wall.

Which future US president towed a badly burned crewman to an island with a strap clenched in his teeth in 1943?

John F. Kennedy then scratched a rescue message on a coconut husk, and island scouts carried it to a US base, bringing help for his crew.

Why does backstroke always come first in a medley relay?

Its swimmers start in the water, so a backstroker starting mid-race could collide with the teammate finishing; the other legs then run slowest to fastest.

Which US swimming champion, whose 1940 Olympics were cancelled by war, became MGM's swimming movie star?

Esther Williams broke her neck filming a high dive for Million Dollar Mermaid, in which she played swimming star Annette Kellerman.

Which 17-year-old won three swimming golds before a home crowd at the Sydney 2000 Olympics?

Ian Thorpe anchored the 4x100 m freestyle relay and overhauled American Gary Hall Jr. on the last length to win.

Which country won its first Olympic gold when Joseph Schooling took the 100 m butterfly at Rio 2016?

Singapore rewarded Joseph Schooling with a S$1 million prize for the win, which also set an Olympic record of 50.39 seconds.

Which aquatic sport has featured at every Olympic Games since Paris 1900?

Water Polo's 1904 tournament featured just three American clubs and was long listed as a demonstration event, until the IOC recognised it in 2021.

Which swimmer won 23 Olympic gold medals between 2004 and 2016?

Michael Phelps retired after London 2012, came back in 2014 and added five more golds at Rio 2016.

What is the continuous, alternating up-and-down leg action of front crawl called?

Flutter kick adds little propulsion in front crawl; its main job is keeping the body horizontal and stable.

After Murray Rose and Jon Henricks won gold in 1956, which pre-race ritual spread through swimming?

Shaving off body hair was popularised by Australians Jon Henricks and Murray Rose, who shaved down before their Melbourne 1956 wins; swimmers worldwide soon copied the ritual for big meets.

Which of these is NOT an official competitive swimming stroke?

The dog paddle is a basic, rudimentary swimming technique but is not recognized as one of the four official competitive strokes (freestyle, backstroke, breaststroke, butterfly).

In competitive breaststroke, when may a swimmer take an underwater pullout?

At the start and after each turn: a single dolphin kick in that pullout became legal in 2005, a year after Kosuke Kitajima used one unpunished to win Olympic gold.

Which country's national swimming team is nicknamed the Dolphins?

Australia's national swim team lost the Dolphins name for a few years before a rebrand brought it back in the mid-2010s.

Which of these would get a swimmer disqualified in a freestyle race?

Turning without touching the wall breaks the rules: freestyle allows any stroke, but some part of the body must touch the wall at the end of each length.

Which Roman leader escaped by swimming in Alexandria's harbour, holding papers above the water?

Julius Caesar's boat was swamped during the fighting at Alexandria, so he swam with his left hand raised to keep his documents dry.

What are a racing pool's float ropes mainly for?

To reduce waves and minimize disturbance between lanes, lane lines absorb the churn, and deeper water helps them do it by cutting drag.

In 1926, which stretch of water did Gertrude Ederle become the first woman to swim?

The English Channel crossing made Gertrude Ederle a star: more than two million people lined her ticker-tape parade in New York.

What is the technique of moving hands and forearms for propulsion without a full stroke called?

Sculling lets synchronized swimmers hold themselves up with small hand movements, even while upside down, and helps anyone tread water.

Which French swimmer won four individual gold medals at the Paris 2024 Olympics?

Léon Marchand won the 200 m butterfly and 200 m breaststroke finals less than two hours apart on one night in Paris.

What is the primary function of a pull buoy in swimming training?

To float the legs: held between the thighs, it removes the need to kick, so the arm pull must keep the swimmer moving.

Why did Eric Moussambani swim his 100 m freestyle heat alone at the Sydney 2000 Olympics?

Both rivals false-started, so Eric Moussambani swam alone; he later got far quicker, yet a paperwork error kept him out of the 2004 Athens Games.

Which stroke, using a scissor kick, is traditionally taught to lifeguards for rescue tows?

The sidestroke, swum on one side with a scissor kick, keeps one arm free and the head clear of the water, which is why lifesavers use it for towing.

Which Olympic swimming champion later starred as Tarzan in a dozen Hollywood films?

Johnny Weissmuller caught polio at nine and took up swimming on a doctor's advice, the start of a career that brought five Olympic golds.

Which sea captain made history in 1875 by swimming for 21 hours 45 minutes without artificial aids?

Matthew Webb died in 1883 trying to swim the rapids below Niagara Falls.

Why do the rules make swimmers in most strokes surface within 15 metres?

Underwater kicking was faster, because a swimmer meets more resistance at the surface than below it.

Which Chinese leader staged a much-publicised swim in the Yangtze River in 1966 to show he was still vigorous?

Mao Zedong soon ordered the party's work teams withdrawn, which left the student Red Guards free to organise.

Which swimming innovation did critics call 'technological doping' before FINA banned it?

Body-length polyurethane suits such as the LZR Racer compressed swimmers and trapped air for buoyancy, so FINA ruled that suits must be textile.

Who first swam 100 m freestyle in under 50 seconds, at the 1976 Olympics?

Jim Montgomery's likeliest rival, South Africa's Jonty Skinner, was barred from Montreal, then broke Montgomery's world record weeks later in Philadelphia.

Which Hungarian won the first Olympic swimming races, held in the open sea at Athens 1896?

Alfréd Hajós later became an architect, designed the swimming complex on Budapest's Margaret Island and won an Olympic art medal in 1924.

Which swimmer won 100 m freestyle gold at three straight Olympics, from 1956 to 1964?

Dawn Fraser was accused of taking an Olympic flag from outside the Emperor's palace in Tokyo, and her federation then banned her for 10 years.

Which swimmer became the first African-American woman to win an individual Olympic swimming gold?

Simone Manuel said the medal wasn't just for her but for the African Americans who came before her, and that her win would help inspire others.

Where was the swimming pool for the 1908 London Olympics built?

In the centre of the stadium's running track, a 100 m pool became the first built for the Games; earlier Olympics had raced in the sea, a river and a lake.

Which part of the White House was built over the swimming pool installed for Franklin D. Roosevelt?

The Press Briefing Room sits where presidents once swam: Richard Nixon had the pool covered in 1969 to make space for reporters. The old pool is still beneath the floor, now filled with computer servers.

Which future US president was credited with saving 77 swimmers as a young lifeguard in Illinois?

Ronald Reagan spent six summers guarding a treacherous stretch of the Rock River at Lowell Park in Dixon. Newspaper reports of the time support his tally of rescues.

Which strait do swimmers cross from Asia to Europe in Istanbul's annual open water race?

Istanbul's Bosphorus Cross-Continental Swim was first held in 1989 with 64 men and 4 women. The course runs downstream with the current from the Asian shore to a park on the European side.

Which watchmaker built an advertising campaign on a watch that survived Mercedes Gleitze's 1927 sea swim?

Rolex had a new waterproof case, the Oyster, to sell. The watch withstood a cold-water swim that Gleitze herself could not finish, and the firm still uses her name in its publicity.

The sharp smell of an indoor pool, often blamed on chlorine itself, comes mostly from which chemicals?

Chloramines form when chlorine reacts with the sweat and urine that bathers bring into the water. A strong pool smell is therefore a sign of too little chlorine doing its job, not too much.

Which future European princess swam for South Africa in a medley relay at the Sydney 2000 Olympics?

Charlene of Monaco, then Charlene Wittstock, helped her relay team to fifth place. She met Prince Albert that same year at a swimming meet in Monte Carlo.

Which river did Slovenian Martin Strel swim for 5,268 km over 66 days in 2007?

The Amazon swim covered a distance greater than the width of the Atlantic Ocean. Strel's escort boats stood ready to pour blood into the river to draw piranhas away from him.

In Paralympic swimming, what does a 'tapper' do for a blind swimmer during a race?

A tapper signals the wall is near by touching the swimmer with a pole, so they know when to turn or finish. Totally blind swimmers are required to use one.

In which swimming-pool tag game does a player with closed eyes find the others by their shouted replies?

Marco Polo is essentially blind man's buff moved into the water, a game played on dry land since at least the 16th century. No real link to the explorer of the same name has been found.

Which swimmer's Cuba-to-Florida attempts are the subject of a 2023 film starring Annette Bening?

Diana Nyad's memoir Find a Way is the basis of the film, in which Jodie Foster plays the best friend who trains her. Both actors were nominated for Oscars.

Why are flags strung across a competition pool five metres from each end?

To warn backstrokers of the wall they cannot see coming: most know exactly how many strokes they need once the flags pass overhead. Turning the head to look would only slow them down.

Under the rules of a freestyle swimming race, which stroke must a competitor use?

Any one they like is allowed, because freestyle is a category of race and not a stroke. Nearly everyone chooses the crawl simply because it is the fastest way across the surface.

How should a swimmer caught in a rip current escape, instead of fighting straight back in?

Swim parallel to the shore, because most rips are narrow and a short sideways swim leaves the flow behind. A strong one runs at 2.5 metres a second, faster than any human can swim.

Which stroke, new to Britain, did Ojibwe swimmers Flying Gull and Tobacco use at an 1844 London race?

Front crawl failed to catch on: after Flying Gull won both races, a fresh English swimmer beat the tired visitors with an older style, and British swimmers kept to their old strokes for another 50 years.

Which part of the body becomes inflamed in otitis externa, a condition nicknamed after swimmers?

The ear canal becomes inflamed in swimmer's ear, and swimming is one of its main risk factors. About 2% of people get it in any given year.

British open-air public pools are called 'lidos' after a famous beach resort island off which Italian city?

Venice's Lido is the barrier beach that encloses its lagoon, and the name comes from the Latin for shore. English once used the word for any public swimming place.

The French word for a swimming pool, 'piscine', comes from the Latin name for which kind of animal?

Fish gave the word its start: a Roman piscina was a fishpond before the name passed to pools for bathing. The same root gives us Pisces.

Which Olympic sport, built around a soldier's skills, combines swimming with fencing, shooting and running?

Modern pentathlon swapped its show jumping for an obstacle course from 2025, after more than a century of riding. Its swim is a freestyle race.

Which British comedian swam 140 miles down the River Thames for Sport Relief in 2011?

David Walliams took eight days to swim from Lechlade to Westminster Bridge and raised more than £2 million. The river gave him a parasitic infection and a back injury.

Open water swimming's Triple Crown includes a 48.5 km lap of which New York island?

Manhattan's circuit, once simply the Manhattan Island Swim, is now called the 20 Bridges Swim. The Triple Crown's other two legs are sea channels.

What name is given to the 10-kilometre open water race added to the Olympic programme in 2008?

Marathon swimming takes its Olympic distance from a rule of thumb: ten kilometres is the unofficial minimum for a swim to count as a marathon. Other courses cross lakes, circle islands or follow rivers.

Which strait, first swum by Mercedes Gleitze, is one of the seven crossings in the Oceans Seven challenge?

Gibraltar's strait joins six other channels in a challenge devised in 2008 as the swimmer's answer to mountaineering's Seven Summits. Irishman Steve Redmond was the first to complete the set, in 2012.

Which Great Lake did Canadian teenager Marilyn Bell become the first person to swim across in 1954?

Ontario took her 20 hours and 59 minutes, and she set off with no fee. A famous American offered $10,000 for the same crossing gave up sick by six in the morning, and the prize went to the teenager instead.

Which Soviet leader raised a toast to American Lynne Cox's swim across the Bering Strait?

Mikhail Gorbachev praised her 1987 crossing at a White House treaty signing. Her two-hour route linked two islands only 2.3 miles apart, one American and one Soviet.

Which endurance swimmer made the first swim across the North Pole in 2007 to highlight melting sea ice?

Lewis Pugh, dubbed the Sir Edmund Hillary of swimming, later crossed a glacial lake on Mount Everest for the same cause. He is the first person to complete a long-distance swim in every ocean.

Which British athlete spent 157 days in 2018 becoming the first person to swim around Great Britain?

Ross Edgley covered 1,780 miles in what was recognised as the world's longest staged sea swim. The World Open Water Swimming Association voted it Performance of the Year.

Which American swimmer, blind from birth, won 55 medals to become the most successful Paralympian in history?

Trischa Zorn won seven golds at her first Games in 1980 and was still on the podium in 2004. Ten of her 41 gold medals came at Barcelona in 1992 alone.

Which 1932 Olympic swimming champion went on to play Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers in film serials?

Buster Crabbe won the 400 metres freestyle in 1932, and the gold medal launched his screen career. He went on to play the three biggest comic-strip heroes of the 1930s.

Which swimmer, a champion of the women's one-piece bathing suit, inspired the 1952 film Million Dollar Mermaid?

Annette Kellerman claimed she was arrested at Revere Beach for wearing one, but no police record or news report of the day backs the story. Her suits sold well enough to become their own swimwear line.

Which actor plays a man who decides to swim home through his neighbours' pools in the 1968 film The Swimmer?

Burt Lancaster took the title role in a film based on a John Cheever short story. Its score was the first that Marvin Hamlisch wrote for the screen, a job he won after playing piano at the producer's parties.

What name do swimmers, like distance runners, give to easing off training in the days before a big race?

Taper periods often last a week or more, and for many athletes one is essential to peak performance. Weightlifters and sprinters do it as well as endurance racers.

What do swimmers and runners call covering the second half of a race faster than the first?

A negative split means deliberately holding back early and speeding up towards the finish. Runners have used the tactic since at least the early 20th century.

In competitive swimming, which term identifies a pool that is 25 metres long rather than Olympic length?

Short course records are usually faster than long-pool ones, because every extra turn means another powerful push off the wall. In the US the term more often means a pool of 25 yards.

Which name is used for the class of competitive swimming reserved for adults aged 25 and over?

Masters swimming is not only for the middle-aged: younger 'premasters' are usually included too, from 18 in countries such as Canada and Britain or from 20 in much of Europe.

Which pool technology followed a 1960 Olympic final in which hand timers clocked the runner-up faster than the winner?

Electronic touchpads let swimmers stop their own clocks. In 1960 all three timekeepers had Lance Larson at least a tenth of a second quicker than John Devitt, yet the judges gave Devitt the gold.

In two of the four competitive strokes, how do the rules require a swimmer to touch the wall?

With both hands at once, a move known as the two-hand touch. It applies at every turn and at the finish in the two strokes whose arms move as a mirrored pair.

Which leg action lets a swimmer stay upright and steady in deep water while keeping both hands free?

The eggbeater kick never pauses, because each leg circles in turn, so the body stays level without bobbing. All that knee rotation can cause joint problems.

Which word, from the Latin for 'swimmer', names a building constructed to house an indoor swimming pool?

Natatorium entered American English around 1890 as a New England word for a place to swim. Indoor pools in general were once known by the name.

Which US president began his White House days with a dawn swim in the Potomac River?

John Quincy Adams rose at five, read his Bible and then walked or swam. One outing left him sitting unclothed on a rock for five hours after an old boat capsized in mid-river.

Which lake is almost ten times as salty as the ocean, making swimming there more like floating?

The Dead Sea is so dense that bathers bob on its surface, and its shores are the lowest dry land on Earth. The salt makes it too harsh for plants and animals, hence the name.

Which Chinese Olympic champion was banned after a security guard smashed a case holding his blood vials?

Sun Yang's standoff with the testers began when he challenged their accreditation during a late-night visit to his home in 2018. The Court of Arbitration for Sport ruled that he had tampered with doping control.

Which British swimmer was the first man to swim the 100 metres breaststroke in under 57 seconds?

Adam Peaty had already been the first man under 58 seconds, in 2015. He was also the first to dip below 26 seconds over 50 metres of the same stroke.

Which Hungarian medley swimmer turned her nickname, the 'Iron Lady', into an international brand?

Katinka Hosszú was one of the most versatile swimmers in the world. In 2014 she became the first swimmer, man or woman, to earn a million dollars in race prize money.

Which bird nickname did West German Olympic champion Michael Gross earn for his 2.13-metre arm span?

The Albatross stood 2.01 metres tall and won three Olympic golds for West Germany across the 1984 and 1988 Games. He added five world titles between 1982 and 1991.

Which Olympic backstroke champion was expelled from the 1936 US team for drinking on the ship to Europe?

Eleanor Holm admitted to a few glasses of champagne but blamed a personal grudge held by team boss Avery Brundage. More than half of her teammates signed a petition on her behalf.

The Great Bath, called the earliest public water tank of the ancient world, was excavated at which city?

Mohenjo-daro's bath is about 12 metres long and up to 2.4 metres deep, with a wide staircase at each end. It was built in the third millennium BCE and found by archaeologists in 1926.

In which 1904 Olympic event did competitors dive in and glide face down without moving for 60 seconds?

Plunge for distance was scored by how far the motionless body drifted. Spectators were not impressed: an 1893 report said a plunger moved at the pace of a snail and the contests looked like a waste of time.

Which Florida beach city has been home to the International Swimming Hall of Fame since 1964?

Fort Lauderdale's museum is recognised by the sport's world governing body as the official hall for aquatic sports. Its exhibits range from ancient art to swimwear and champions' memorabilia.

Which magnate, owner of a Catalina Island resort, sponsored the 1927 ocean race won by 17-year-old George Young?

William Wrigley Jr., the chewing gum king, put up a $25,000 prize, won after 15 hours 44 minutes in the water. The winner saw little of it: his mother had signed 40% away to his trainer.

The Christmas morning race in Hyde Park's Serpentine lake is swum for a cup named after which storybook character?

Peter Pan's creator, JM Barrie, donated the cup himself. The 100-yard race dates from 1864, has missed only 2020, and is open only to members of the Serpentine Swimming Club.