Swimming is an old sport demanding technique, strength, and a lot of endurance.
In the 19th century, swimming became a competitive sport known worldwide. The first swimming races took place in a natural environment. It was only in 1908 that the game took place for the first time in a pool, in London, leading to the creation of the Fédération Internationale de Natation (FINA). At the Games in Athens in 1896, freestyle events were the only ones accepted with breaststroke and backstroke (swimming styles) competitions then added at the 1904 Olympics in St-Louis and backstroke, fifty-two years later, at the Melbourne Games in 1956. Women’s swimming joined the Olympics not long after in 1912 with only two events but today the men’s and women’s events are identical.
The way it works at the Olympic Games is that swimming events are held in a 50-meter-long pool. The four strokes for both individual and relay races are breaststroke, butterfly, backstroke, and freestyle where crawl is often used. A fifth race involves all four strokes with swimmers switching between them, called the mixed medley. The distance always varies from 50m to 1500m. The distances by which the events are calculated always depend on the functioning of the competition. It can be measured either in meters or yards.
Unfortunately, Olympic swimming has been largely dominated by athletes representing the United States, who have won over 250 gold medals. However there are new hopes for this year’s Olympics swimming events, Josh Liendo from Ontario won two titles in less than two days during the NCAA swimming and diving championships. The first one was a fifty-yard in freestyle on March 28th, a few minutes after Liendo won the relay events 200 yards freestyle with his team Julian Smith, Macguire McDuff, and Adam Chaney. The next day, he won the title of one hundred yards in butterfly.
” The team is in good shape and has good momentum ahead of the games this summer in Paris.” Affirmed Josh Liendo.
The team works hard to inspire future generations of swimmers, they hope to set new records for this sport and hopefully share it with the world.
