Olympic Swimming Styles: History and Types
Over the years, numerous swimming styles have emerged in professional competition. Swimming is one of the best forms of exercise and swimming events have become some of the most popular competitions in modern Olympic Games.
Super stars such as Michael Phelps have emerged as the new faces of swimming and have made swimmers household names all around the world. There are numerous types of swimming styles that have come about in recent times; the front crawl, the backstroke, the butterfly stroke, the breaststroke, the side stroke, freestyle and the dog paddle. While not all of these styles are used in competition; the ones that are used have been developed specifically to fill a certain need. We might see some new styles emerging in the future with more people experimenting during swimming events.
Swimming has very ancient origins; it seems to have been around since prehistoric times. Cave drawings depicting swimming have been found in prehistoric caves all around the world. Swimming was mentioned in classical literature as well throughout the ages. As the practice of swimming started to become more and more popular, people started to hold races and competitive events.
Competitive swimming was introduced in Europe in the 1800s and became part of the Olympic Games in 1896. The first type of stroke that was predominantly used in competition was the breaststroke. The most popular type of swimming stroke, the front crawl, was invented in 1873 by John Trudgen. He apparently emulated the style from watching Native Americans swim. This style has become one of the most common and popular swimming methods in the world.
From the breaststroke, the butterfly stroke was developed and later on the backstroke also appeared. These styles each have their own events in the Olympics and all of them are practiced all over the world.
The first stroke to emerge was the breaststroke. This style follows a frog like motion in the water and a swimmer has to push both hands through the water from their chest and keep their elbows under water. This is the slowest style of swimming because the amount of water that is pushed back to propel a person forward is not as much as the other strokes.
The breaststroke is done competitively in 50m, 100m and 200m races. Since this stroke was very slow, a faster way to swim needed to be found. The above mentioned front crawl came along and helped people to start flying in the water. It is a very simple stroke to do; the swimmer swings both arms in turn in front of them and kicks their legs for added momentum. Events are held in 50m, 100m, 200m, 400m, 800m and even 1500m lengths.
One of the most physically demanding swimming strokes to be developed is the butterfly. It evolved from the breaststroke but proved so popular that it became a competitive style of its own. To do this difficult style, a swimmer raises both arms out of the water at the same time and pushes them back into the water while kicking their feet like a dolphin. The difficulty in this stroke comes from the fact that in competition a swimmer has to synchronise both sides of their bodies to do the same thing at the same time. It requires massive amounts of upper body and shoulder strength.
The final type of stroke is called the backstroke. It is essentially the opposite of the front crawl with a swimmer raising their arms into the air and pushing the water away and kicking their feet while being on their backs. This interesting method was perfected by a swimmer named Henry Hebner from the USA during the 1912 Olympic Games.
It looks like the strokes will keep on coming; more people are all set to introduce new and innovative swimming styles to the world and these will inevitably be used in competition. Swimmers are always trying to find methods and ways to go faster and beat world records and if a new stroke can do it they will gladly take it on. Let’s see what the world of swimming can bring us next in interesting styles of strokes.
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