Swimming

Introduction of FINA

• 国际游泳联合会• International Swimming Federation ， FINA • 简称国际泳联，成立于 1908 年，总部设在瑞士，是管

理国际游泳运动的机构。国际泳联的工作目标之一是支持和协调其会员协会的工作或需求，在全世界推动游泳运动的发展。

• 从 1896 年第一届奥运会起，游泳就是奥运会的竞赛项目。国际泳联的任务是确定奥运会和其他国际比赛中游泳、跳水、 水球和花样游泳的规则，审核和确认世界纪录，指导奥运会中的游泳比赛。

• Swimming developed with the struggle between human beings and nature in ancient times. Drawings from the Stone Age were found in "the cave of swimmers” near Sura, dating back to 2000 BC. There is evidence that swimming was also a very popular sport in Greece and Italy in the original Olympic Games. In 1538, Nicolas Wynman, German professor of languages, wrote the first swimming book.

History of swimming

• Competitive swimming in Europe started around 1800, mostly using breaststroke. The front crawl, then called the trudgen (now known as the "front crawl“ or “ freestyle“) was introduced in 1873 by John Arthur Trudgen, copying it from Native Americans. Swimming was part of the first modern 1896 Olympic Games in Athens. In 1900, Backstroke was included as an Olympic Event.

History of swimming

• In 1908, the world swimming association Federation Internationale de Natation (FINA) was formed. Butterfly was first a variant of breaststroke, until it was accepted as a separate style in the 1952 Olympics. At present, there are the four recognized strokes of butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke and freestyle; while the IM (individual Medley) is a combination of all four of the strokes in a specific order. Butterfly is done first, followed by backstroke, breaststroke, and then finishing with freestyle.

History of swimming

• Swimming is an activity that burns lots of calories, is easy on the joints, supports your weight, builds muscular strength and endurance, improves cardiovascular fitness, cools you off and refreshes you in summer.

History of swimming

• The four basic swimming strokes are those incorporating freestyle, the backstroke, the breaststroke and the butterfly. There are some Olympic swimming rules. Let‘s go through each and explain them briefly.

History of swimming

• Freestyle (front crawl) is the fastest way to move from one end of the pool to the other and everyone in a freestyle race in the Olympics will use front crawl. Freestyle swimmers use an alternating arm action, an alternating leg action, and breath to the side. Freestyle swimmers use a forward start-off of a starting block.

Freestyle

• They might do a few dolphin kicks or fish-kicks off the start before they surface and begin to swim. Freestylers do a flip turn at each wall. They might do a few dolphin-kicks or fish-kicks off of each wall before they surface and begin to swim. Freestylers finish the race by touching the wall with some part of their body, usually a hand.

Freestyle

• The breaststroke is the slowest stroke. Swimmers are “belly-down“ and use a simultaneous arm pull, with the arms pressing out (a ”Y“ shape), then sweeping in, with the hands meeting under the face then extending forward.

Breaststroke

• The elbows must be underwater during the pull and the hands are not allowed to pull past the waist/lips (with one exception on pullouts). A pullout is a ”giant” pull, ending with the arms against the sides.

Breaststroke

• Then the swimmer moves the arms to a forward position and does one breaststroke kick. Then they begin regular breaststroke (1 pull + 1 kick cycles), including the head breaking the surface of the water at the start of regular swimming.

Breaststroke

• Breaststrokers use a forward start from starting blocks and are allowed to do one breaststroke pull-out before they begin actually swimming. Breaststrokers do open turns. They touch the wall with both hands simultaneously, then rotate and push off the wall. Breaststrokers finish the race by touching the wall with both hands simultaneously.

Breaststroke

Butterfly• Butterfly grew out of breaststroke in

the 1950s and 1960s, finally becoming its own separate event at the 1956 Olympics. Swimmers are "belly-down“ and must use a simultaneous arm pull, sort of like doing the front crawl pull with both arms at the same time; the arms are recovered over the surface of the water.

Butterfly• The kick is a butterfly kick; sort of like a

freestyle kick but with both legs doing the same action at the same time. The legs must stay in the same horizontal plane relative to each other. They may not change their relative position to each other. Most butterfly swimmers breath forward, but a few flyers breath to the side, like a freestyle breath.

Butterfly• Butterflyers use a forward start off of a

starting block. They do a few dolphin kicks or fish-kicks off the start before they surface. Butterflyers do an open turn. They touch the wall with both hands simultaneously, then rotate and push off of the wall. Butterfly swimmers finish by touching the wall with both hands simultaneously, just as they would as if they were going to do a turn.

• The swimmers must have an alternating arm action, and will have an alternating leg action. Backstroke almost looks like upside-down freestyle. Since a backstroker’s face is out of the water most of the time, breathing is easier.

Backstroke

• Backstroke swimmers start in the water, with their feet against the wall, hands holding on to a starting grip. Backstrokers do a flip turn at each wall, and do a few dolphin kicks or fish-kicks off the start or off each wall before they surface and begin to swim. Backstrokers must finish "belly-up” (on heir backs) by touching the wall with some part of their body, usually a hand.

Backstroke

• The IM race uses all four strokes, in order, butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke, and freestyle. Within each one of those portions of the race the swimmer must follow the rules for that stroke. Before switching from one stroke to another, the swimmer must touch the wall in the same way they would as if it was the end of the race for the stroke they are using as they approach the wall. IM races often feature lead changes as different swimmers are better at one style than others, and they might fall behind or move ahead depending upon what stroke they are swimming.

Individual Medley

• There are two types of relays, freestyle and medley. The strokes used in the relays must follow the same rules as used for individual races. Freestyle relays follow the rules of a freestyle race-any style may be used, but the swimmers will all be using front crawl.

Relays

• The medley relay has each swimmer performing one of each of the swimming styles, in order, backstroke, breaststroke, butterfly, and freestyle. The freestyle swimmer is not allowed to use any of the strokes already used, but the swimmer wouldn’t, they will always use front crawl. Relays begin the same way as individual races, with the swimmer on the starting block (freestyle) or in the water holding the hand grips (backstroke swimmer in the medley relay ).

Relays

• The subsequent swimmers all start from the starting block and may be moving or use a "rolling” start. As long as some portion of the swimmer is contacting the starting block when the swimmer finishing touches the wall, the start is legal. This used to be judged visually, but now the automatic timing system normally fills this role, with a tolerance of 0.04 seconds.

Relays

• The Olympic swimming pool is 50-meter long, at least 25 meter wide and at least 2-meter deep. The pool has at least 8, 2.5-meter wide swimming lanes. Besides the pool‘s depth, the pool’s lane ropes (also called lane lines, the thick “ropes“ between each lane), the gutters, walls, and circulation system are all designed to minimize waves and turbulence. The pool has starting blocks at each end. These are elevated starting platforms used by freestyle, breaststroke, and butterfly swimmers.

Swimming Pool

• The blocks also have handles near the water for backstroke swimmers to use for their starts. The pools have an automatic timing system started when the electronic signal is initiated (the swimmers here a beep) and stopped when the swimmer touches the end wall "touch pad“ in their lane. This system also allows for mid-race times to be easily seen. To keep backstroke swimmers from crashing into the wall on their turns and finishes, a string of flags is suspended above the pool 5 meters from the end of the pool. The lane ropes also change color at the 5-meter mark.

Swimming Pool

• Swimmers wear suits (closely regulated by the FINA-suits must be pre-approved months before the Olympic games) and goggles. Most swimmers also wear swim caps. All of these are designed to help the swimmer, with the idea of minimizing drag kept at the forefront.

Swim Wear

• Each swim wear manufacturer makes a super-slick swim suit. At the Olympic games, some people think that the fastest swimmers are usually wearing the fastest suits, too. There is always some question as to whether the swimmer is X-amount faster than a competitor because of physical training or their swim wear. It is probably some amount of both.

Swim Wear

• There are starters, referees, judges, back-up timers, and more working at the Olympic swimming competition. They make sure the rules are enforced. Officials are highly trained. In most cases the officials have a lot of experience before they are asked to work the Olympics.

Officials

Exercise• Introduction of a swimming player

or some interesting stories of swimming.