Swimming is one of the oldest Olympic disciplines. Swimming is considered only such overcoming of water space when a person swims under water no more than 15 m after the start. Sports disciplines, when an athlete swims a greater distance under water, are classified as underwater, not swimming.
IOC classification
The International Olympic Committee (or IOC) divides swimming distances into two types: in open and confined water, in other words, swimming in the sea or in a pool.
Open water swimming, or marathon distance, was included in the competition program as recently as 2008 in Beijing. Such a swim is carried out for 10 km. This is the longest open water distance.
Swimming in the pool is a more traditional discipline and the longest distance in this area is 1500m, freestyle.
The Russian-language official classification calls swimming water sports, the term “swimming” is not used.
Competitions in the pool
International competitions are held only in pools, which are usually 50 or 100 m in length. Due to the fact that the athlete often changes direction, his speed is often slightly higher than if he was swimming over a longer section without making turns. There are several problems associated with fixing speed records.
In 1908, it was decided that records could only be set in pools longer than the Olympic ones, so no swimming records were set at the games. But in 1956, this decision was revised, now records can only be set in pools of 50 and 55 meters long. Since 1957, record registration has been started again. In the period from 1988 to 1993, this decision was revised again, and now it is possible to set records in a 25-meter pool.
Swimming in open water
A distance of 10 km in swimming is considered ultra-long. Once this was the lot of lonely experimenters, but now long-distance swimming has begun to be carried out in large quantities.
The history of ultra-long distance swimming began in the 19th century, when Briton Matthew Webb swam across the English Channel in 1975. It took him 21 hours and 45 minutes to do this.
Open water competition was included in the 1991 World Swimming Championships. And now, every even year, since 2000, the World Open Water Swimming Championships are held at distances of 5, 10 and 25 km. But the longest Olympic open water distance so far is the 10 km swim.
