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Swimming

Sport Overview

History of Swimming

Tickets

Sport Pictogram country

Number of Medal Events

100

Number of Athletes

100

In Association With country

What is Swimming?

Swimming at the Olympics is both an individual and team sport where competitors propel their bodies through water in either an outdoor or indoor swimming pool using one of the following strokes: Freestyle, backstroke, breaststroke, or butterfly. It is not to be confused with Marathon (open water) swimming, or artistic swimming at the Games, which are considered separate disciplines.

By whom, where and when was Swimming invented?

Prehistoric man learned to swim in order to cross rivers and lakes - we know this because cave paintings from the Stone Age depicting swimmers have been found in Egypt. Swimming was also referred to in Greek mythology. Swimming was not widely practised until the early 19th century, when the National Swimming Society of Great Britain began to hold competitions. Most early swimmers used the breaststroke, or a form of it. Based on a stroke used by native South Americans, the first version of the crawl featured a scissor kick. In the late 1880s, an Englishman named Frederick Cavill travelled to the South Seas, where he saw the natives performing a crawl with a flutter kick. Cavill settled in Australia, where he taught the stroke that was to become the famous Australian crawl.

Swimming and the ISSA

Swimming is one of the oldest Olympic sports, having featured at every modern Olympic Games since Athens 1896. Women began competing at the Stockholm 1912 edition, and the mixed medley relays made their Olympic debut at Tokyo 2020. The shortest individual event at the Olympics is the 50m freestyle, while backstroke, breaststroke and butterfly’s shortest race is 100m. The United States is the most decorated nation with 257 gold medals overall after Tokyo 2020, comfortably ahead of second placed Australia with 69. The most decorated male Olympic swimmer of all time is USA’s Michael Phelps who, with 23 gold medals (including 13 individual titles) and 28 medals overall, is also the most decorated Olympian of all time in any sport.

Allocation & Eligibility

World Aquatics (Swimming) will allocate 150 male and 150 female athlete places at its discretion, taking into account NOC/NSF participation in the 2025 World Aquatics (Swimming) Championships, regional representation in the World Aquatics (Swimming) Ranking List, universality, and host nation representation. NOCs may enter up to two athletes per individual event and one team, made up of qualified athletes within its overall quota, per relay event. Athletes must achieve the Minimum Performance Standard (MPS) for each event between 1 January 2024 and the final entry deadline, as well as comply with World Aquatics Eligibility Rules. Athletes who meet the Minimum Performance Standard (MPS) may compete in any number of events. For allocation, World Aquatics (Swimming) must receive official results from the relevant National Swimming Federation. These results are subject to review and approval.

Competition Schedule

Day 01

22 Sep 2025

Event

Time (SAST)