History of Swimming

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“History of Swimming” History of Swimming: Swimming has been known since prehistoric times. Drawings from the stone age we found in “the cave if swimmers” near Wadi Sora in the south western part of Egypt. In 1538 Nicolas Wynman, German professor of languages, wrote the first swimming book, “Colymbetes. Competive swimming in Europe started around 1800, mostly using breaststroke. The front call, then called the Trudgen was introduced in 1873 by John Arthur Trudgen, copying it from nativr Americans. Swimming was part of the first modern Olympic Games in 1896 in Athens. In 1902 the trudgen was improved by Richard Cavill, using the flutter kick. In 1908, the worl swimming association, Federation Internationale de Natation de Amateur (FINA), was formed. Butterfly was first a variant of breastroke, until it was accepted as a separate styles in 1952. Ancient times: Drawings from the Stone Age were found in "the cave of swimmers" near Wadi Sora (or Sura) in the southwestern part of Egypt near Libya. These pictures seem to show breaststroke or dog paddle, although it may also be possible that the movements have a ritual meaning unrelated to swimming. This cave is also featured in the movie The English Patient. An Egyptian clay seal dated between 4000 B.C. and 9000 B.C. shows four swimmers who are believed to be swimming a variant of the front crawl. More references to swimming are found in Babylonian bas-reliefs and Assyrian wall drawings, depicting a variant of the breaststroke. The most famous drawings were found in the Kebir desert and are estimated to be from around 4000 B.C. The Nagoda bas-relief also shows swimmers dating back from 3000 B.C. The Indian palace Mohenjo Daro from 2800B.C. contains a swimming pool sized 30m by 60m. The Minoan palace Minos of Knossos in Crete also featured baths.

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