About The Sport
Swimming is a hugely physical and demanding sport, with athletes competing over distances from 50m to 1,500m in the pool. Swimmers need huge strength and stamina to power themselves through the water, as well as perfectly honed technique. In addition to the events in the pool, the 10km open water event were contested for the first time at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games for both men and women.
Apart from the 10km open water competition, events for the Olympic swimming programme are held in a 50-metre-long pool and include 26 individual and six team relay men’s and women’s events. These include freestyle, backstroke, breaststroke, butterfly and the individual medley style. The team events are the freestyle and the medley relay.