Competitive swimming began in bays, rivers and a World's Fair lake long before it moved into pools, and diving once came in plain and fancy styles. These stories run from Matthew Webb's beer-fueled Channel crossing in 1875 to a swimsuit tested in a NASA wind tunnel, by way of a teenager who swam Lake Ontario uninvited and a sprinter who raced his Olympic heat alone.
Every tile in a Swimming and Diving game carries one of these. Open one to read it now, or leave them for the board to hand you.
Champions
nine stories
1The first women's champion nearly stayed home
On the tile: Fanny Durack1912
Women's swimming joined the Olympics in 1912, and one of Australia's stars almost missed it. The New South Wales Ladies' Amateur Swimming Association forbade women to compete where men were present. Public demand reversed the rule, and an appeal for funds paid Fanny Durack's way to Stockholm. She set a world record of 1:19.8 in her heat and won the 100 meter freestyle. She and teammate Mina Wylie even offered to swim two legs each of the relay, but they were turned down.
Johnny Weissmuller won five Olympic swimming golds in 1924 and 1928, yet he was technically ineligible. He was born in a part of Austria-Hungary that is now in Romania and was not a U.S. citizen. To compete in Paris, he claimed the birthday and birthplace of his younger brother Peter, who was born in Pennsylvania, and someone altered Peter's baptismal record to add John as a middle name. Weissmuller never publicly admitted the deception. He left amateur swimming at 24 and went on to play Tarzan in 12 films.
When Aileen Riggin took up diving in 1919, women near New York had almost nowhere to train, so she practiced at a tidal pool on Long Island, where the drop from the board changed with the tide. The rulebook for the 1920 Olympics arrived in French, and she needed a dictionary to learn that a coup de pied à la lune was a gainer. Officials nearly left the young divers home. In Antwerp she won the first Olympic women's springboard title, and in 1924 she won medals in both diving and swimming.
As a boy in Southern California, Sammy Lee, the son of Korean immigrants, could swim in his community pool only on Wednesdays, the one day nonwhite children were admitted, the day before the pool was drained and cleaned. He became a diver anyway. World War II wiped out the 1940 and 1944 Games, and by the time the Olympics returned he had earned a medical degree. In London in 1948 he won platform gold, the first Asian American man to win an Olympic gold medal, and he defended that title in 1952.
5Both diving golds, twice, the second time as a new mother
On the tile: Pat McCormick1952-1956
Pat McCormick's first dives as a young teenager were off a canal bridge in Southern California. By 1952 she was winning both Olympic diving events, the 3 meter springboard and the 10 meter platform, in Helsinki. Four years later in Melbourne, just five months after having her first child, she won both again, becoming the first diver to sweep the two events at back-to-back Olympics. Diving stayed in the family: her daughter Kelly won Olympic diving medals in 1984 and 1988.
6The first woman to swim 100 meters in under a minute
On the tile: Dawn Fraser1956-1964
Dawn Fraser won the Olympic 100 meter freestyle in Melbourne in 1956, in Rome in 1960 and in Tokyo in 1964, the first Olympic swimmer to win the same event at three straight Games. In October 1962 she became the first woman to swim the 100 meters in under a minute, and for two years she was the only one. In the Tokyo final, 15-year-old Sharon Stouder became the second, but Fraser, at 27, held her off, 59.5 seconds to 59.9.
Mark Spitz had been brilliant since he was a 10-and-under swimmer, but the International Swimming Hall of Fame calls him the most disappointing swimmer at the 1968 Olympics, even though he won two relay golds there. Four years later in Munich, he set a goal of seven gold medals in seven events. He won all seven, every one in world record time, in races as different as the 100 meter freestyle sprint and the 200 meter butterfly. His record for golds at one Games stood until 2008.
In the 1988 Olympic 100 meter butterfly final in Seoul, American Matt Biondi led until the last stroke. Caught between strokes near the wall, he chose to kick in, and Anthony Nesty of Suriname touched him out, 53.00 seconds to 53.01. It was the first Olympic medal ever won for Suriname, and it made Nesty the first Black swimmer to win Olympic gold. At home, the national indoor swimming stadium and a national airplane were named after him, and he was honored on a stamp and on coins.
Fu Mingxia remembered her first climb to a 10 meter platform. The rule was that a diver must leave from the front and can never go back down the stairs, so, terrified, she jumped. By 1991, at 12, she was world champion on the platform. In Barcelona in 1992 she won Olympic platform gold at 13. Because she was so young, diving authorities had changed the rules to require divers to turn 14 during the Olympic year. She did, 20 days after the final.
John Trudgen was born in London in 1852 and moved to Buenos Aires with his parents at 11. There, according to the International Swimming Hall of Fame, he picked up an overarm stroke from Indigenous South American swimmers. English racing had grown out of breaststroke, but in August 1875, the same month Matthew Webb swam the Channel doing breaststroke, Trudgen won the English 100 yard championship with his double overarm stroke and sidestroke kick. The trudgen became a standard for longer races until about 1920, when the crawl took over.
In 1898 Alick Wickham, a boy from the Solomon Islands attending school in Sydney, entered a children's race at the rock pool at Bronte. Onlookers were astonished by his speed and his stroke, with his head held fairly high and his arms turning over fast and short. The story goes that coach George Farmer shouted that the kid was crawling, and the name stuck. The International Swimming Hall of Fame credits Wickham with introducing the crawl to the Western world, while also crediting Australia's Dick Cavill with shaping its arm stroke and kick.
The first modern Olympics in 1896 held four swimming races, and one of them was not open to the world. The 100 meters for sailors was restricted to members of the Greek navy. Eleven men entered, but only three actually started, and all three finished, so every starter is listed as a medalist. Ioannis Malokinis won in 2 minutes 20.4 seconds. The historians behind the Olympedia database call the race's place in the Olympic records dubious at best, but it still counts as an Olympic event.
The 1900 Paris Olympics held their swimming in the River Seine, including an event contested at the Olympics only that once: underwater swimming. Competitors earned two points for each meter swum and one point for each second spent underwater. Frenchmen Charles Devendeville and André Six took first and second. A newspaper, Journal des Sports, thought the third-place finisher, Peder Lykkeberg, was the best of the lot. He had swum in a circle, covering far more than 60 meters, but distance was measured only in a straight line from the start.
At the 1904 Olympics in St. Louis, one event rewarded athletes for doing nothing once they hit the water. In the plunge for distance, the score was how far a competitor traveled after entering the water, with no attempt to propel himself. All five competitors were American. Billy Dickey won easily, drifting 62 feet 6 inches. The American record holder, Charles Pyrah, was far off form and finished fifth and last. The plunge was never held at another Olympics.
Early Olympic diving came plain or fancy. From 1912 through 1924, men's Olympic diving had three events: springboard, fancy high diving and plain high diving. In 1912, plain high divers chose every dive from a table of 13 allowable dives, and Sweden's Erik Adlerz won both the plain and the fancy titles. Plain high diving was last held in 1924, when Australia's Dick Eve won the men's event even though one judge ranked him only equal seventh among the nine finalists. The other four judges placed him no worse than second.
For a time, the butterfly was simply a way to swim breaststroke. At the 1952 Olympics in Helsinki, every finalist in the men's 200 meter breaststroke used the butterfly, and Australia's John Davies won an unexpected gold. It was the first and last time that happened. By the 1956 Games in Melbourne, breaststroke and butterfly were separate events, with a 200 meter butterfly for men and a 100 meter butterfly for women. The split did not end the arguments: nearly a third of the entrants in the men's 200 meter breaststroke were disqualified for illegal strokes.
At Harvard in the 1980s, backstroker David Berkoff began pushing off the wall with his arms stretched overhead, kicking like a dolphin underwater for 35 to 40 meters and surfacing ahead of everyone. It became known as the Berkoff Blastoff. He broke the 100 meter backstroke world record three times in 1988 and won silver in Seoul, narrowly beaten by a Japanese swimmer who used a form of the same kick. Right after those Games, FINA limited the underwater distance to ten meters. Today's rules allow 15.
From 1928 on, the Olympic diving program hardly changed: men and women each contested a 3 meter springboard and a 10 meter platform event. In Sydney in 2000, synchronized diving for pairs was added on both springboard and platform, doubling the number of diving events. Television had reportedly asked for more diving because viewers liked watching it. The idea itself was not new. Olympedia notes that Olympians Harold Smith of the United States and Farid Simaika of Egypt performed synchronized dives as early as 1939.
Captain Matthew Webb left Dover's Admiralty Pier a few minutes before 1 p.m. on August 24, 1875, swimming breaststroke at about 26 strokes a minute. The tide swept him off course, a jellyfish stung him in mid-Channel, and he kept going on beer, brandy and beef tea. He reached the sands at Calais the next morning, about 21 hours and 45 minutes after starting, the first person to swim the English Channel. Nobody else managed it for 36 years.
Swimmers as famous as Annette Kellermann had tried the English Channel and failed. Gertrude Ederle, who won Olympic relay gold in 1924, failed on her own first try in 1925. The next year she swam from France to England in about 14 and a half hours, becoming the first woman to cross and breaking the men's record, even though rough seas forced her to swim extra miles. When she came home, New York City gave her a ticker-tape parade.
Mercedes Gleitze, a British stenographer, failed to swim the English Channel seven times before succeeding on her eighth try in 1927, the first Englishwoman to do it. When the Channel Swimming Association questioned whether her swim was genuine, she announced she would do it again. Hans Wilsdorf, founder of Rolex, asked her to wear his new waterproof Oyster watch. The water was much colder, and she had to be pulled out. But the watch, worn on a ribbon around her neck, kept perfect time, and the association recognized her first swim.
Chewing gum magnate William Wrigley Jr. wanted publicity for Santa Catalina Island in the off season, so after Gertrude Ederle's Channel swim he offered $25,000 to the winner of a race across the Catalina Channel. In January 1927 more than 100 swimmers leaped into water of about 54 degrees. George Young, a penniless 17-year-old amateur from Toronto, took the lead after about a mile. As he neared the mainland at night, thousands lined the shore with bonfires and car headlights. He came ashore after about 15 hours and 45 minutes, the only swimmer to finish.
5Turned away from a Channel race, she broke the record
On the tile: Chadwick1950
In 1950 London's Daily Mail sponsored a Channel swimming contest, and Florence Chadwick of San Diego was denied entry for having no record or reputation. She had saved money while working for the Arabian American Oil Company, so she paid for her own boat, trainer and navigator. On August 8 she swam from France to Dover in 13 hours and 23 minutes, breaking Gertrude Ederle's women's record. The next summer she swam from England to France, becoming the first woman to cross in both directions.
6Racing unofficially, she swam across Lake Ontario at 16
On the tile: Marilyn Bell1954
In 1954 the Canadian National Exhibition offered American star Florence Chadwick $10,000 to swim across Lake Ontario, and critics asked why no Canadian had been invited. Sixteen-year-old Marilyn Bell entered unofficially, with no promise of prize money, and set out around 11 at night. By morning Chadwick and the only other starter had quit. Bell fought lamprey eels, cold water and high waves for 20 hours and 59 minutes, becoming the first person to swim across the lake. She was given the $10,000, along with gifts that included a car and a collie.
Equatorial Guinea could enter one male swimmer at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, and Eric Moussambani was the only one who answered the call. He had begun swimming only months before, trained in a 20 meter hotel pool and had never swum in a 50 meter pool. In his 100 meter freestyle heat, the other two swimmers false-started, so he raced alone. He struggled badly near the end but finished in 1:52.72, and television made him world famous. He kept training and lowered his best to 52.18 seconds by 2006.
8Marathon swimming got its own Olympic race in 2008
On the tile: Beijing 10K2008
The earliest Olympic swimming races were held in open water, but marathon swimming did not get an Olympic event of its own until Beijing in 2008: a 10 kilometer race, held at a rowing and canoeing park. In the men's race, Britain's David Davies led from an early stage. With a few hundred meters left, he drifted away from the finishing funnel and had to cut sharply back. That opened the door for Maarten van der Weijden of the Netherlands, who pulled ahead and won.
Matthew Webb swam across the English Channel. In 2018 Lewis Pugh, the United Nations Patron of the Oceans, swam along it, from Land's End in Cornwall to Dover, a distance put at 530 to 560 kilometers (about 330 to 350 miles). He set off on July 12, and the swim took 49 days. He wore only a cap, goggles and swim trunks, under Channel Swimming Association rules that ban wetsuits, and the association validated the swim. He wanted to draw attention to plastic pollution, commercial overfishing and climate change.
Benjamin Franklin was an inventive swimmer long before he was a statesman. As a boy, he later wrote, he made two oval palettes about ten inches long with a hole for the thumb, and pushed the water with their flat sides. He swam faster, but they tired his wrists. He also tried sandals on his feet. Another day he floated on his back holding the stick at the end of his kite string and let the kite tow him across a pond, while another boy carried his clothes around.
2The first Olympic swimming course was marked with pumpkins
On the tile: Bay of Zea1896
The first modern Olympics had no swimming pool. In 1896 the races were held in the Bay of Zea near Piraeus, all on one day, watched by as many as 20,000 spectators and the king of Greece. The water was a frigid 53 to 57 degrees Fahrenheit. For the 100 meters, a ship carried the swimmers out to a start line between two buoys, and they raced toward a red flag on shore. Hollow pumpkins marked the course, but they floated and drifted, making it hard to follow.
The 1904 Olympic swimming events in St. Louis took place in a man-made lake at the World's Fair that was used every day for life-saving exhibitions. Races ran between a pier and rafts floating on the lake, and a river fed the water, creating a slight current. Diving made its Olympic debut there too, with a single springboard event. At the far end of the lake, cattle from the fair's agricultural exhibits grazed and cooled themselves in the water.
The swimming pool for the 1908 London Olympics was built in the infield of White City Stadium, just inside the running track, and it was 100 meters long. Its diving tower was retractable, so it could be lowered below the surface of the water when not in use. In all six swimming races, the winning time was considered a world record. And on July 19, during those Games, delegates from across Europe formed the international swimming federation known today as World Aquatics.
In 1919 Ethelda Bleibtrey took off her stockings before swimming at Manhattan Beach. Bare legs counted as nudity at the time, and she was cited for nude swimming. According to the International Swimming Hall of Fame, the publicity swung public opinion in her favor and helped free women's swimming from stockings. The next year, at the 1920 Olympics in Antwerp, she won all three women's swimming events, becoming the first American woman to win an Olympic swimming title.
Australian swimmer Annette Kellermann made her own one-piece swimsuit by stitching black stockings into a boy's costume, and she considered freeing women from neck-to-knee swimwear her greatest achievement. The story goes that in 1907 she was arrested on a Boston beach for wearing a brief one-piece suit, and the Australian Dictionary of Biography repeats it. But no police record or news report from the time backs it up, and the tale first surfaced in the 1920s, told by Kellermann herself. Either way, she later lent her name to a line of one-piece swimsuits.
The 1960 Olympic 100 meter freestyle final in Rome was decided by eye. Electronic timing existed but served only as a backup. The six finish judges split 3-3 between Australia's John Devitt and American Lance Larson. All three hand timers had Devitt at 55.2 seconds, while Larson's showed 55.0, 55.1 and 55.1, and the electronic timer had Larson ahead, 55.10 to 55.16. The chief judge, though the rules gave him no vote, declared Devitt the winner. Years of appeals failed.
8The Olympic backstroker who taught the Navy to swim
On the tile: Adolph Kiefer1936
As a high school student, Adolph Kiefer became the first person to swim 100 yards backstroke in under a minute, and in 1936 he won the Olympic 100 meter backstroke in Berlin. In World War II he documented how many servicemen were dying for lack of swimming instruction, and the Navy put him in charge of swimming for the entire service, where he oversaw the training of thousands of instructors. His company went on to sell a line of floating kickboards and developed the PVC rescue tube now widely used by lifeguards.
Shortly after the 2004 Olympics, Speedo asked NASA to help design a swimsuit with less drag. At Langley Research Center, fabrics and seams were tested in a small wind tunnel, and the resulting LZR Racer had ultrasonically welded seams instead of stitched ones. In March 2008, swimmers wearing it broke 13 world records. By the Beijing Olympics that summer, a new generation of super suits woven with polyurethane was the controversy of the year. Some called them technological doping, and the super suits were later banned.