Swimming
SWIMMING
Most human locomotive efforts are geared toward movement on land. However, Earth is a largely aqueous planet, and people have found that self-locomotion in water is essential, enjoyable, and enlightening for fundamental, recreational, safety, and competitive activities.
As far back as recorded Egyptian history, swimming was utilized as a device for combative strategy. According to Wolfgang Decker, in Sports and Games of Ancient Egypt, Egyptians viewed nonswimmers as inferior persons; the escape of Ramesses II and his Egyptian troops from the Hittites in the Battle of Kadesh is credited to their superior ability to swim. Hieroglyphics on pottery provide evidence of early swimming efforts—with a form of the crawl stroke a common artistic trope—particularly by those Egyptians who lived in the Nile Valley. The Pharaoh is said to have enjoyed swimming contests.
The ancient Greeks enjoyed swimming and bathing as recreational and leisure activities. They built indoor shrines and saw the use of water as cleansing and eternal. While the Greeks swam in streams and rivers and ponds, the Romans constructed "baths" to immerse themselves in controlled water in less natural, more predictable settings. Such Roman baths have been a model for swimming pools throughout the world.
In the ensuing years, swimming has taken on many forms. Humans swim recreationally for pleasure, enjoying the sensual feel of water and the various games and methods of propulsion in the water; people swim for utilitarian reasons, such as the combat-ready United States Navy SEALS, who perform reconnaissance and offensive and defensive maneuvers in the water. Innovative people have found ways to extend their bodies' abilities through use of technological advances such as scuba (self-contained underwater breathing apparatus) gear and a variety of diving (wet and dry) suits. Finally, humans compete in the water in a variety of ways, from the swimming races exemplified in the modern Olympic Games to extreme contests like underwater breath-control exercises, from marathon swimming and under-ice swimming to water polo, diving, and underwater hockey.
Recreational Swimming
People take pleasure from the enveloping feel of water. Those who cannot swim learn to bathe in small amounts of water, and even little children enjoy the pulsing motion of the waves at the sea, often learning to swim at an early age so they may unravel the mysteries of water. Recreational swimming, of course, accompanies wading, diving, body surfing, surfing, and other recreational activities in and around the water.
But water can be an unsafe place for some. Free and spontaneous recreational swimming, usually in open water, occasionally ends in drowning, and swimmers of the late nineteenth century turned to supervised recreational areas for a safer environment. Swimming schools in Europe in the early 1800s, the Surf Lifesaving Association of Australia, and the American National Red Cross in the early 1900s, among many other national organizations, attempted to standardize safety efforts for swimmers and swimming venues so that swimming recreationally became a safer pursuit. Learn-to-swim programs, lifesaving education, and activities like "drown proofing" all have standardized approaches to learning aquatic activities: For example, the crawl is the fundamental stroke first learned in North America, while the breaststroke is foundational in many Asian countries.
Utilitarian Swimming
Swimming has utilitarian roots. When pursued by enemies, humans have taken to the water for escape: In A World History of Physical Education, Deobold Van Dalen and Bruce Bennett also speak of Ramsses II versus the Hittites, of Jonathan the Maccabee swimming the Jordan River to escape pursuers, and of the ancient Greeks teaching swimming, especially for those who were serving in the navy. During the battle of Marathon, the Persians were said to have used swimmers to established a beachhead.
The ability to swim to an enemy's site, to reconnoiter, to establish offensive and defensive strategies upon a hostile enemy, has long been valued by armed forces. In 1941, for example, the Italian Navy used closed-circuit scuba devices to set explosives on British merchant marines ships. In 1942, U.S. Navy "Scouts and Raiders" were trained to clear out obstacles for beach landings and to guide troops: They were forerunners of the U.S. Navy SEALS. Underwater demolition teams began training in June 1943. The U.S. Navy SEALS were established in 1961, and employed aquatic skills for offensive and defensive maneuvers in World War II, Korea, Vietnam, and other conflicts.
Use of Technology
In 1535, Guglielmo de Loreno invented a diving bell of sorts, which was used to extend human immersion underwater. Since then, underwater bells, solid metal diving suits with attached diving helmets, and submarine apparatuses have all extended human immersion. But not until 1865, when Benoit Rouquayrol and Auguste Denayrouse invented an underwater breathing apparatus, could humans extend their time underwater without connection to and total dependence upon the surface. The evolution of the underwater breathing apparatus continued until, in 1925, a self-contained underwater breathing apparatus was refined by Yves Le Prieur; a regulator was designed and later perfected by Jacques-Yves Cousteau and Emile Gagnan—they also designed the Aqua-Lung in 1943. Extending immersion time has long fascinated humans, and technological advances have created more and more extensions: In 2001, John Bennett set a world record for diving to a depth of 308 meters. In 2003, Tanya Streeter set a world record in the "variable ballast" category while diving to a depth of 122 meters, or 400 feet. In the 1930s, Guy Gilpatric used rubber goggles, which lead to the use of mask, fins, and snorkles, and increased the participation rates of snorkeling.
Competitive Swimming
The Greeks had swim competitions at Hermione; the Japanese competed as early as 36 b.c. But competitive swimming in North America has its roots in the (British) National Swimming Association around 1837. Swimming championships were started in Australia in 1846. Competitions soon flourished in many varieties: Races were divided into distances swum, strokes utilized, and professional or amateur. Many of the distances were initially in open water, but by 1904 the St. Louis Olympics conducted their swimming races in "still water."
However, ultradistance swimming was becoming a contest not only of speed in the water, but of endurance. Swims such as the English Channel, Catalina Island, and Lake Michigan were highly challenging. Lean body mass and specific gravity within the water influenced a more egalitarian ratio between the sexes so that women were successful in comparison to men. Gertrude Ederle, Greta Anderson, Abo-Heif, Florence Chadwick, Guilio Travaglio, Horacio Inlesias, and Judith DeNys are some of the early pioneers of marathon swimming.
Competitive swimming in the United States reached age-group swimming initially through Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) programs. Swim clubs flourished, and four strokes emerged as "competitive" strokes: front crawl, back crawl, breaststroke, and butterfly. These—along with medley and freestyle relays, and the individual medley—are raced in a short-course (in pools with twenty-five-yard lengths) and a long-course format (in pools with fifty-meter lengths). Colleges and universities compete in athletic conferences, typically with dual meet champions and championship meet champions emerging at the season's conclusion. The National Collegiate Athletic Association sanctions both men's and women's swimming and diving teams and contests, with culminating national championships in Divisions I, II, and III.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
"Amphibious Forces." Available from http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/.
Decker, Wolfgang. Sports and Games of Ancient Egypt. Translated by Allen Guttmann. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1992.
Oppenheim, Francois. The History of Swimming. North Hollywood, Calif.: Swimming World Books, 1970.
"Scuba History." Available from http://www.about-scubadiving.com.
Sprawson, Charles. Haunts of the Black Masseur: The Swimmer as Hero. New York: Pantheon Books, 1992.
Van Dalen, Deobold B., and Bruce L. Bennett. A World History of Physical Education: Cultural, Philosophical, Comparative. 2d edition. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, Inc., 1971.
Wennerberg, Conrad. Wind, Waves, and Sunburn: A Brief History of Marathon Swimming. New York: Breakaway Books, 1997.
"World War II." Available from http://www.navyseals.com.
Robert E. Rinehart