Swimming Trivia
For swimming enthusiasts, here you can find fun swimming facts and trivia! Some fun facts that would be great for an upcoming fundraising quiz night or just as an interesting read.
- Tracy Caulkins is the only swimmer in history to hold a World Record in every single stroke.
- The belly button of a Blue Whale is about 8 inches wide.
- Johnny Weismuller (‘Tarzan’ actor and Olympic swimmer) saved the lives of 11 people when a boat capsized in Lake Michigan so was a real life hero too.
- Turtles can absorb water directly from the water around them.
- The English are considered the first modern society to develop swimming as a competitive sport. By 1837 swimming competitions were being held in London and organised by the National Swimming Society.
- Tuna swim at an average of 9 miles per hour and don’t ever stop. So a 15 year old Tuna fish could have swum 1,000,000 miles in it’s life.
- The United States won every single event in swimming in the 1948 Olympic Games.
- Captain Matthew Webb was the first man who swam the English Channel without a lifejacket but died trying to swim the rapids at Niagara Falls.
- Elephants use their trunks as snorkels and can swim up to 20 miles a day.
- In Las Vegas some hotels feature gambling pool tables inside their modern swimming pools.
- Swimming became an Olympic sport in 1896.
- Sharks can’t take in water through their gills by themselves so when they stop swimming (such as for sleeping) they struggle breathing.
- If you have blonde hair that goes greenish from swimming pool chlorine, you put ketchup on it and it balances the pigments out.
- Greg Louganis hit his head on a dive board mid dive at the 1988 Seoul Olympic Games which required stitches but 10 minutes later he was back diving again. 2 days later he won the Gold medal in Springboard and Platform dives.
- Benjamin Franklin invented swimming fins.
- In a lifetime a human produces on average 25,000 quarts of spit which is enough to fill up 2 swimming pools – eugh!
- It is illegal to swim in Central Park, New York.
- Steve Genter suffered with a collapsed lung in the 1972 Olympic Games just days before his event. Without permission from his doctors he swam in the Games and went on to win a silver medal in the 200m Freestyle and a bronze medal in the 400m Freestyle.
- Titanic was the first ocean liner to feature a swimming pool onboard and a gym.
Swimming Jokes
Where do ghosts go swimming? In the Dead Sea!
Why did Vegetarians stop swimming? Because they didn’t like meets!
Why do you keep doing backstroke? Because I’ve just had lunch and don’t want to swim on a full stomach.
What do a dentist and a swimming coach have in common? They both use drills.
A study says that chocolate may lower your chances of a stroke. That is, a swimming stroke, a golf stroke, a tennis stroke...
A diver was shipwrecked up onto a lonely and tropical shore. As he stood up he noticed his hands were purple, he looked at his feet and they were purple, worriedly he unzipped his wetsuit and his chest and stomach were purple. With his head in his hands he cried, "Oh my God! I’ve been marooned!"