History

Competitive swimming started in Europe around 1800, with the breast stroke being the most dominant swimming style up until 1873, when John Trudgen Arthur created the trudgen. Trudgen was a copy of front crawl by Americans. The modern freestyle features such as flutter kick and the overarm strokes were first developed by an English man called Richard Cavill in the year 1902.At the time, Cavill hailed in Australia hence the reason why the stroke ended up being called The Australian Crawl. From that time onwards, the stroke was done during swimming competitions. Johnny Weismuller who was an Olympian later on in the 1920’s polished the freestyle stroke.

These are some comeptitive swimmers:

• Micheal Phelps: He is known for breaking the all-time record for the most Olympic gold medals, with a total of 22 medals overall. Now considered the most famous Olympic swimmer of all time, Phelps is also the long course world record holder for the 100-meter butterfly, 200-meter butterfly, and 400-meter individual medley. He has also won the World Swimmer of the Year Award seven times, as well as the American Swimmer of the Year Award nine times.
 
• Mark Spitz: Spitz is a retired American swimmer who won seven gold medals in the 1972 Munich Olympic games. This achievement has only been surpassed by Michael Phelps, who won eight gold medals at the 2008 Olympics. Spitz was named World Swimmer of the Year in 1969, 1971, and 1972. He also set 33 world records.
 
• Katie ledecky: Katie ledecky is one of the most famous female swimmers of all time, after a record-breaking Olympic performance at only 15. During her debut, she became the first female athlete since 1968 to win the gold in three different events, the 200m, 400m, and 800m freestyle races. She has since broken 13 world records and won 20 medals (19 gold), including six Olympic medals. She was awarded the titles of World Swimmer of the Year and American Swimmer of the Year in 2013, 2014, and 2015.

LBC-Rebecca Adlington