Interesting Swimming Facts!

Here's the lowdown on a few of our favourite interesting swimming facts...

• The oldest swimming stroke is Breaststroke, which is also the slowest stroke swum at the Olympics
• Over half of the top swimmers in the world suffer with shoulder pain
• The Bikini got it’s name from Bikini Atoll – a nuclear test site in the South Pacific!
• Elephants can swim up to 20 miles a day using their trunks to breathe through
• In Egypt, there have been ancient drawings and paintings found that go back to 2500AD so humans have been swimming fot at least 10,000 years
• The Olympics began as a mens only competition and in 1912 women were allowed to participate
• The first cruise ship with a swimming pool was the Titanic
• The first man to swim the English Channel was Captain Matthew Webb in 1875
• August 6^th 1926 - Gertrude Ederle was the first woman to swim the English Channel and did it quicker than the fastest male
• Swimming became an Olympic event in 1896
• The tumble turn was invented by the American swimming coach Tex Armstrong who trained Adolph Keifer for the 1936 Olympics
• Swimming works out all the body’s main muscles
• The first diving board in England was at Highgate Ponds in 1893
• About 65,000 people in the USA don’t know how to swim
• More than 1 million micro creatures at swimming, feeding and reproducing behind your lips!
• Benjamin Franklin invented swimming fins
• Kangaroos are excellent swimmers
• Synchronized swimming was not featured in the Olympics until 1984
• The first swimming race recorded was in Japan
• In the 1300’s the first swimming goggles were made from tortoise shells, the first rubber goggles were made in the 1930’s
• ‘Piscine’ the French word for swimming pool, comes from the Latin Piscine which means fishpond
• The most popular swimming stroke is Front Crawl
• An Olympic size swimming pool can hold 700,000-850,000 gallons of water
• On planet Earth there is 328million cubic miles of seawater which covers about 71% of the entire Earth’s surface

Are there any interesting facts you think we've missed out?