Olympic Swimming

In total, the Olympics will host four different types of aquatic events; diving, swimming, synchronised swimming and water polo. Despite the long history of swimming as a sport, it has only been recognised as a competitive sport in the last two hundred years.

The governing body for the swimming events in the Olympic Games will be the Federation Internationale de Natation.

In terms of popularity, swimming is seen as the leading event for aquatics with a wide range of events from 50 metres to 1500 metres and using the four main strokes, butterfly, breaststroke, backstroke and freestyle (forward crawl). In general, the pool is split into ten lanes with the eight middle lanes being used by the swimmers. Quite simply, the first swimmer to touch the wall is declared the winner.