facts about swimming....

History:



(Picture from fina.org)
Ancient drawings.



1) Ancient drawings and paintings were found in Egypt detecting people swimming which date back to 2500 AD.

2) Swimming became an amateur sport in the late part of the nineteenth century.

The Olympic Rings
(picture from en.wikipedia.org)

3) Swimming became a part of the olympic games in 1896.

4) Swimming in the olympics started men's event only but women were able to participate in 1912.

5) The first man to cross the English Channel was Captain Matthew Webb who was an Englishman he did it in 1875.

6) The first woman to swim the English Channel is Gertrude Ederle, who was actually just a teenager at that time in 1926.

7)Mark Spitz was the first Olympic swimmer to win seven gold medals in a single Olympiad in the 1972 games.

Strokes:

Breastroke
(picture from china.org.cn)

1) The oldest form of stroke used is breaststroke.

2) In butterfly and breaststroke, swimmers need to touch the pool with both handsat the same time when they finish. Swimmers touch the pool with only one hand when they finish in freestyle and backstroke.

3) The most popular freestyle stroke is front-crawl, which is considered the fastest stroke.

Health and Excercise:

1) An hour of fast swimming could burn up to 650 calories. It burns off more calories than walking or biking.

Your heart and lungs
(picture from hsc.uwe.ac.uk)

2) Swimming strengthen your heart and lungs.

3) Swimming works out all of the body’s major muscles.

Other interesting swimming facts:

1) The first ocean liner with a swimming pool is the Titanic.

2) The two-piece bathing suit known as bikini got its name from Bikini Atoll, a US nuclear test site in the South Pacific.

3) Over 50% of world-class swimmers suffer from shoulder pain.