Swimming is a movement through water using one's limbs without artificial aids, and can be used for utility, recreation, exercise, and sport. The history of swimming dates back thousands of years, though modern competitive swimming began in the 19th century with various strokes and styles developing over time. Swimming provides health benefits but also risks, and is practiced recreationally as well as professionally in competitions and the Olympics.

1. Swimming
English project
Theme: Sports
4/11/2010

2. Swimming is a movement through water using
one’s limbs and usually without artificial apparatus.
Swimming is an activity that can be both useful and
recreational.
“The move is an ongoing process of falling forward and a mass
dropped from a higher level drops quickly, "says Bejan.
“The swimmer that makes the biggest
wave is the faster, and makes a long
trunk and larger waves. Europeans
have a 3% longer than the West
African body, and this gives them
1.5% more speed advantage in the
pool, "he completes.

3. History
Swimming has been known since prehistoric times; the
earliest records of swimming date back to Stone Age paintings
from around 7,000 years ago. Written references date from
2000 BC. Some of the earliest references include the Gilgamesh,
the Iliad, the Odyssey, the Bible (Ezekiel 47:5, Acts 27:42,
Isaiah 25:11), Beowulf, and other sagas.
In 1538, Nikolaus Wynmann, a German professor of
languages, wrote the first swimming book, The Swimmer or A
Dialogue on the Art of Swimming.
Competitive swimming in Europe started around 1800,
mostly using breaststroke. In 1873 John Arthur Trudgen
introduced the trudgen to Western swimming competitions, after
copying the front crawl used by Native Americans. Due to a
British disregard for splashing, Trudgen employed a scissor kick
instead of the front crawl's flutter kick. Swimming was part of
the first modern Olympic games (1896 in Athens). In 1902
Richard Cavill introduced the front crawl to the Western world.
In 1908, the world swimming association, Fédération
Internationale de Natation (FINA), was formed. Butterfly was
developed in the 1930s and was at first a variant of breaststroke
until it was accepted as a separate style in 1952.

4. As occupation
Some occupations require the workers to swim. For
example, abalone- or pearl-divers swim and dive to obtain an
economic benefit, as do spear fishermen.
Swimming is used to rescue other swimmers in distress. In
the USA, most cities and states have trained lifeguards, such as
the Los Angeles City Lifeguards, deployed at pools and beaches.
There are a number of specialized swimming styles especially
for rescue purposes (see List of swimming styles). Such
techniques are studied by lifeguards or members of the Coast
Guard. The training for these techniques has also evolved into
competitions such as surf lifesaving.
Swimming is also used in marine biology to observe plants
and animals in their natural habitat. Other sciences use
swimming, for example Konrad Lorenz swam with geese as part
of his studies of animal behavior.
Swimming also has military purposes. Military swimming is
usually done by special forces, such as Navy SEALS. Swimming
is used to approach a location, gather intelligence, sabotage or
combat, and to depart a location. This may also include airborne
insertion into water or exiting a submarine while it is
submerged. Due to regular exposure to large bodies of water,
all recruits in the United States Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast
Guard are required to complete basic swimming or water
survival training.
Swimming is also a professional sport. Companies sponsor
swimmers who are at the international level. Cash awards are
also given at many of the major competitions for breaking
records.
Professional swimmers may also earn a living as
entertainers, performing in water ballets.

5. Styles
A style is also known as a stroke.
"Stroke" can also refer to a single
completion of the sequence of body
movements repeated while swimming
in the given style.
Several swimming styles are
suitable for recreational swimming;
many recreational swimmers prefer a
style that keeps their head out of the
water and has an underwater arm
recovery. Breaststroke, side stroke,
head up front crawl and dog paddle
are the most common strokes utilized
in recreational swimming. The out-of-
water arm recovery of freestyle or
butterfly gives rise to better
exploitation of the difference in
resistance between air and water and
thus leads to higher speed.
It is possible to swim by moving
only legs without arms or only arms
without legs. Such strokes may be
used for special purposes, for training
or exercise, or by amputees and
paralytics.

6. Advantages of swimming
The organization inure. Located faster and better able to adapt to
environmental changes even when they are extreme, while not
facing the risk of any damage to health.
The functioning of the heart and circulatory affected positively.
The increase in metabolism, stress and resistance of water during
bathing have a significant effect on the heart and circulatory
system ... we are good!
It increases the functional capacity of respiratory muscles.
Swimming is directly linked to adequate and regular supply of
oxygen. Good breathing technique strengthens the respiratory
muscles.
Combat weaknesses and faults in posture. Due to the buoyancy
maintain proper posture and overall anchorage mechanism,
ligaments and joints are not charged at all.
Simultaneously exercise all muscles of the body heavily. It is one
of the few forms of exercise while participating in almost the
same percentage of all the muscles for work.
Exercising in water causes euphoria and makes placing and
exploding hormones responsible for the good will and euphoria of
the organization.

7. Risks of swimming
There are health risks and dangers associated with swimming.
Most recorded drownings fall into one of three categories:
 Panic where the inexperienced swimmer or non swimmer becomes
mentally overwhelmed by the circumstances of their immersion.
 Exhaustion, where the person is unable to sustain effort to swim or tread
water.
 Hypothermia, where the person loses critical core temperature, leading to
unconsciousness or heart failure.
 Less common are salt water aspiration syndrome where inhaled salt water
creates foam in the lungs that restricts breathing, and hyperventilation.
Around any pool area, safety equipment and supervision by personnel
trained in rescue techniques is important. It is required at most
competitive swimming meets, and is a zoning requirement for most
residential pools in the United States.

8. Swimming: an individual sport
Swimming is mostly an individual
sport, there is no team involved in it
as there is in football.
Swimmers compete as individuals
in competitions, and their fate relies
on their own hands, not the coach,
not the “team” mates but their own.

9. A very competitive sport
The aquatic sport of swimming involves
competition amongst participants to be the fastest
over a given distance under self propulsion.
The different events include 50, 100, and 200
yards/meters in breaststroke,freestyle, backstroke
and butterfly, the '50', '100', '200', '400', '800' and
'1500' free, and the '100', '200', and '400'
Individual Medley,also known as the 'IM', which
consists of all strokes in equal proportion, starting
with butterfly then backstroke, breaststroke, and
then freestyle.
There are also medley relays, which combine
strokes swum by four relay partners leading off
with Backstroke, then Breaststroke, Butterfly, and
Freestyle. In this, swimmers only swim one stroke,
such as 100 yards (American) or meters of
butterfly, while other swimmers take the other
strokes. Medley relays are swum up to 400 meters,
freestyle relays up to 800 meters, with each
participant swimming an equal "leg" from the
racing blocks.
Regulation swimming pools are either 25 or 50
meters or yards across. Racing or training from
one side to the other is known as a lap (one way),
so a coach may say four laps in place of 100
yards/ or 200 meters. Typical public pools, school
pools, and regulation private pools tend to be 25
meters/yards long and Olympic competition is
always in fifty meter pools.
Swimming has been part of the modern Olympic
Games since inception in 1896. Along with the
other aquatic disciplines of diving synchronised
swimming and water polo, the sport is governed
internationally by the Fédératio Internationale de
Natation (FINA), and each country has its own
National Governing Body(NGB) such as United
States Swimming.

10. Swimming at Olympics
In the first four Olympics, competitions were not held in pools, but
rather in open water (1896, the Mediterranean Sea; 1900, the Seine; 1904,
an artificial lake; 1906, the Mediterranean). The 1904 Olympics' races were
the only ones ever measured at yards, instead of the usual metres. A 100
metre pool was built for the 1908 Olympics and sat in the centre of the main
stadium's track and field oval. The 1912 Olympics, held in the Stockholm
harbour, marked the beginning of electrical timing.
The 1924 Olympics were the first to use the standard 50 metre pool
with marked lanes. In the freestyle, swimmers originally dove from the pool
walls, but diving blocks were incorporated starting at the 1936 Summer
Olympics. The flip-turn was developed by the 1950s. Swimming goggles were
first allowed in 1976.The butterfly stroke events were not held until 1956.
According to the rules before then, the butterfly stroke was allowed in the
breaststroke races - but then the contest rules were changed, abolishing the
use of the butterfly stroke in the breaststroke races.
Women were first allowed the longer distance of 800 metres freestyle
in 1968, which remains the longest distance for women. Up until then, women
were considered to be too "delicate" to swim a race this long, even though the
men had had the 1,500 metre freestyle from the very early years.Both men
and women were granted the 200 metre freestyle race in 1968, giving
swimmers an intermediate distance race between 100 metres and 400
metres.Women's teams were first granted the 800 metre freestyle relay race
in 1996 - even though there had been a men's relay race at that distance
since 1912.
At six Olympiads, the men had two freestyle relay races, but the
women only had one. Now, both sexes have two.The medley relay races
(4×100 metres) were not held for men or for women until 1960, but they
have continued in every Olympiad since then.

11. Drugs: both popular and dangerous!
For many athletes, winning is the main goal in sport. Although most of us, who
relate to the sport, agree that the focus is not whether you win or lose but how you
play, we know how much more fun it is to win than lose. The ultimate goal for
athletes is to win either an Olympic level, or in local races.
The victory is often the point of achieving a specific personal goal performance. For
example, for a top athlete a new world record, for an athlete of moderate level a
personal record. Most athletes train long and hard to achieve these goals and this is
the most effective approach. But some of the questions that come to answer is: "How
can I improve my abilities to win?", "How can I do a new record?".
And when winning or breaking a record in sports is the only objective, some
athletes use every possible means, including illegal drugs to achieve it.
The use of these substances by athletes to improve their performance exists for
nearly a century, but after World War II it has spread widely in athletes who took part
in international and world level competitions. Today, they spread slowly in college
sports as well in school sports.
Doping in sport was a growing danger not taken any action until the death of a
cyclist at the Olympic Games in Rome in 1960, and this triggered the creation of the
Medical Committee which was affiliated to the International Olympic Committee (IOC)
and and legislative measures against the use of these substances at the Olympic
Games.

12. "Doping is the application or use by an athlete of any substance
foreign to the body or any natural substance used in unusual
quantities or by an abnormal way for the body to increase efficiency in
the race, by artificial means.”
In sport, using drugs especially during the period of intense
coaching education aims to:
reduce body fat
increase muscle mass and strength
increase red blood cells
increase tolerance of the organism to coaching burden (increase in
volume and intensity of your workout and quicker removal from
the coaching fatigue, increase competitiveness in conditions of
intense pressure during the match).
Currently, the use of anabolic steroids is no longer limited only to
professional athletes, but many amateurs.
Amateurs usually do not use anabolic steroids to improve their
performance, but for aesthetic reasons.

13. Steroid facts
Frederic Bouske
Disqualified for two months, Frédéric Bouske was punished because of the use of prohibited
substance Eptaminolis. As revealed by Equipe, during an international meeting , he made use of the
substance, which is vasodilatory, thus punished with two months of blockade.
The 29 year old swimmer in an attempt to justify why the substance was found in his body, said:
"I make a special treatment for a specific disease and get a medicine that does not contain any
prohibited substance (usually a vasodilator used to treat the problems of low pressure ).
Giannis Drimonakos
On May 20 ,2008 the beta testing and sample, according to the procedure was positive for the
second time for the same substance. The Hellenic Swimming Federation on May 21 announced the
name of the athlete. Following this development was the Disciplinary Board. This means that if
found guilty, the medals he won at the European Championships in Eindhoven (gold in the 200m.
Butterfly and silver in the 400m. Mixed) and the World Championships in Manchester (bronze in the
400m. Mixed) will be removed.
Shortly after this development, the athlete stated in the most categorical way that had never
knowingly taken or ever considered taking banned substances and announced his retirement from
active swimming. On June 30, 2008, the Hellenic Swimming Federation ruled out the athlete from
any event for two years.

14. The most popular swimmers
 Mark Spitz is the biggest swimmer in the history
of swimming with 11 Olympic medals.
 Matthew Nicholas Biondi is another great swimmer
in the swimming history winning 11 Olympic medals
including 8 golden medals.
 Johnny Weissmuller is another talented swimmer
in the swimming history.
 Ian James Thorpe is one of the most popular swimmers
with 9 medals including 5 golden.
 Michael Fred Phelps holds 4 world records now. His
best events are Freestyle and Individual medley.
 Kristin Otto is the famous swimmer , who won 6 golden medals
at her first participation in the 1988 Olympic games.
 Jennifer Elisabeth Thompson is a great swimmer in world
swimming. She has won 12 medals participating in 4 Olympic
games.

15. By:
Afentaki Lilian, G4
Moragli Anna, G4
Teacher: Ms Apostolaki