15 May: Swimming

Learn to Swim Day is celebrated on the third Saturday in May. Here are 10 things you might not know about swimming:

1. People have been swimming since the Stone Age, since back then, it was the only way to cross rivers or lakes. The earliest records of people swimming are Egyptian drawings from 2500 BC, and stone age paintings in the Cave of Swimmers which are even older.
2. People have been writing about swimming for a long time, too. It is mentioned in the Iliad, the Odyssey, the Bible, Beowulf and the Quran. The first book about swimming was published in 1538. It was by a Swiss–German professor called Nikolaus Wynmann, and went by the snappy title of The Swimmer, or A Dialogue on the Art of Swimming and Joyful and Pleasant to Read.
3. In professional swimming, there are four official strokes: freestyle, butterfly, breaststroke, and backstroke. Of these, the oldest is breaststroke, which is also the slowest. Freestyle is fastest. In German, the name for the butterfly stroke translates as "Dolphin". In the country of Georgia, there is another style of competitive swimming which involves swimming with hands and feet bound. Legendary warriors from that country used to swim that way as part of their training. Not only did it help increase stamina, but it would enable soldiers to escape from a ship even when they were tied up. In the 1960s the method was revived for modern swimmers.
4. Swimming was deemed important for Roman soldiers, who had to pass a swimming test in order to join the army. Swimming was also important for Samurai in Japan, for whom is was a noble skill. The first swimming races took place in Japan in 36BC.
5. Professional swimmers need flexible Feet and ankles – a professional swimmer could lie on their back with their legs stretched out and touch the floor with their toes.
6. They'll also shave all their exposed flesh before a competition. In fact, they not only remove the hair but the top layer of dead skin. This reduces drag and can "shave" milliseconds off their time, but more importantly it increases their sensitivity to the Water, so they can adjust their technique in response to pressure changes.
7. The youngest competitive swimmer is Alzain Tareq from Bahrain who made her world championship debut in 2015 at the age of 10. The oldest is Mieko Nagaoka from Japan, who took part in the 1500-meter freestyle swim that same year, aged 100. She had only taken up swimming 20 years before, at 80, to help recover from a knee injury.
8. The first swimming goggles were made from tortoise shells, during the 14th century in Persia.
9. Swimming for an hour uses around 40% more calories than cycling and 30% more than running. It's also good for you because it strengthens the heart and lungs. Also, you'll sweat just as much swimming as you would running or cycling, though it's hard to tell in the water. An Australian study found that on average, swimmers lost about 125ml of sweat for every kilometre they swam.
10. Around half the population of the USA are unable to swim.

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