Swimming

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Swimming is the set of activities practiced in water such as swimming in a basin (swimming pool) or outdoors (open water). Swimming has been an Olympic sport since 1896 for men and 1912 for women.

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There are 4 types of swimming in competitive swimming: breaststroke, freestyle, backstroke and butterfly, and two different pool lengths: the 25m small pool and the 50m large pool. The latter is the one that hosts the Olympic competitions every 4 years.

The breaststroke, backstroke and butterfly cover 3 distances: the 50, 100 and 200 meters. In theory, freestyle allows all styles of swimming, but in practice the front crawl, the fastest stroke, is used. It has 3 additional distances: the 400, the 800 and the 1,500 meters.

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Of the 40 events practiced, only 32 are contested at the Olympic Games. The 50-meter butterfly, backstroke and breaststroke as well as the 800-meter freestyle for women and the 1500-meter freestyle for men are not part of the Olympic program. They are contested in other competitions such as the World or European Championships.

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OPEN WATER

Open water swimming has been an Olympic discipline since the Beijing Games in 2008 which is held in a natural environment. The 10 km event is the only one to have entered the Olympic program.

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