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 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