Olympic History of Swimming

Swimming was featured in its first Olympics in 1896 in Athens. Back then only men could compete. Six events were planned to be swam, but only four actually were. These were the 100 m, 500 m, 1200 m, and the 100 m for sailors. Alfred Hajos of Hungary was the first gold medalist; winning the 100 and 1200. His time was 1 minute and 22 seconds. This is much slower than the times today. Presently the world record in the 100 meter free for the men is 47.05 seconds. They kept improving in each games, adding more events. Later on the first elastic swim suit would be created by the sweater company Janzten.

Women started in the Stockholm Olympics  in 1912. Although, they only took part in the 100 free and 400 free relay. Men had the same wide range of events they always had. Also at these games, a swimmer from Hawaii won the 100 m free by using 6 kicks to each stroke cycle. He got those skills from the natives of his home islands. The variation evolved into today's freestyle.

In 1922, Johnny Weissmuller, was the first man to swim the 100 m free under a minute, using the six kick crawl mentioned earlier. Weissmuller started the golden age of swimming. He won 5 Olympic medals and 36 national championships, on top of never losing a race in his 10-year career. Afterwards he retired and starred as Tarzan in a film. Johnny's record in the 100 yard is 51 seconds, standing for 17 years. During the same year, Sybil Bauer was the first female to bet a man's record in the 440 m backstroke world record. Innovations in 1924 include cork line divides, and lines at the bottom of the pool to aid the swimmers. New rules are still being added currently.