Recreational swimming can be traced back to prehistoric times. It became a competitive activity starting in 1830s England, and today, competitive swimming is one of the most popular Olympic sports.
In competitive swimming, the goal is to break personal or world records while beating competitors in an event. There are varied distance individual events in competition, including the butterfly, backstroke, freestyle, and individual medley as well as freestyle or medley relay (teams of four swimmers), and each swim stroke requires specific technique with rules governing the acceptable form. There are also regulations concerning athlete’s swimsuits, caps, jewelry, and injury tape and competition pool requirements. The international governing body for competitive swimming is the Fédération Internationale de Natation (“International Swimming Federation”), aka ‘FINA’, and there are a large number of recognized national federations throughout the world.
Training for competitive swimming requires many hours working out in the pool (usually twice a day, 6 days a week) and outside the pool (serious gym time lifting weights, running, yoga, pilates, etc). Prior to a competition, athletes typically decrease their training workload in order to rest their bodies.
WATCH LIVE & FREE On2In2™
Since 1973, the North Sea Swim Meet has become a popular competition among Norwegian as well as international swimmers, and a number of Norwegian, Nordic and international records have been set over the years, among them a world record and several IPC (World Para Swimming) world records.
If you missed the live stream broadcast of 2018 North Sea Swim Meet (November 2-4), there’s still time to watch video recordings of the competition. Just click/tap the “Watch Again” button or select from the video posts on the media player below ↓
If you missed the live stream broadcast of the University of Aberdeen International Open Swim Meet (April 28 – 29), there’s still time to watch video recordings of the competition. Just click/tap the “Watch Again” button or select from the video posts on the media player below ↓
If you missed the live broadcast of 2017 Queensland Championships, there’s still time to watch a video recording of the swimming competition. Just click/tap the “Watch Again” button on the media player below ↓
WATCH 2018 Artistic Swimming Canadian Championships
Can’t swim? Why Not Now? Find inspiration and information on where and how you can learn this life saving skill and have fun doing it!
We’d love to hear from you! If you’d like to comment on this article, join the conversation, or share your inspiration, and you have not yet registered as an On2In2™ playmaker, please sign up via the ‘Engage page’. Don’t worry, it’s pretty quick and easy (unless you’re a robot).
Feature photo is courtesy of Pixabay/Pexels CC0
Incredible athletes showing their stuff.