Olympic Games

Swimming at the Olympics

The 1900 Paris swimming events were held in the River Siene, which meant that the contestants had to contend with the current too.
The London Olympics in 1908 was the first time a swimming pool (100 m) was used for swimming events. Prior to that, the site for the swimming events were the ocean (1896), the River Seine (1900), and a little lake in St. Louis, USA (1904).
There have been some unusual swimming events at the early Olympic Games, including the plunge for distance, underwater swimming race and the swimming obstacle race.
Women competed in swimming events for the first time at the Olympic in 1912, but none of them were from USA, as that country did not allow its female athletes to compete in events without long skirts.
The first women's swimming gold medal was won by the Australian Sarah 'Fanny' Durack, who won the 100m freestyle in 1912.

Mark Spitz from USA won seven gold medals and at the Munich Games, and won them all in world record time.
Bob Windle is relatively unknown, but has a prominent place in Australia's fine 1500m swimming record. He won the event in 1964, in an Olympic record time of 17 min 1.7 seconds.
In 1924, Johnny Weissmuller won three golds and a bronze in water-based events; he later became known for playing Tarzan at the movies.
In 1936, Denmark's 12-year-old Inge Sorensen won a bronze medal in the 200-meter breaststroke, making her the youngest medalist ever in an individual event.
The Butterfly event in swimming was "invented" for the 1956 Games after some swimmers had begun to exploit a loophole in the breaststroke rules.

In 1996, Amy Van Dyken of the U.S. won four gold medals in swimming. Also, Ireland's Michelle Smith won three golds and a bronze in swimming. Smith was accused of using performance-enhancing drugs; this remained unproven, but she was suspended in 1998 for tampering with a urine sample.
In 2000, 17-year-old Ian Thorpe of Australia won four medals (three gold) in swimming, breaking his own world record in the 400m freestyle.
In 2000, Eric "the Eel" Moussambani of Equatorial Guinea was the year's lovable loser, taking 112.72 seconds in the 100m freestyle event — more than twice as long as Pieter van den Hoogenband's gold-winning performance. (more about Eric the Eel)
The 10km Open Water Swimming event will be an Olympic event for the first time in 2008.