Swimming

According to Wikipedia, Swimming is the movement by humans or animals through water, usually without artificial assistance. Swimming is an activity that can be both useful and recreational. The goal of competitive swimming is to be the fastest over a given distance. Competitive swimming became popular in the nineteenth century, and comprises 36 individual events - 18 male events and 18 female events, however the IOC only recognizes 34 events - 17 male and 17 female events. Swimming is an event at the Summer Olympic Games, where male and female athletes compete in 13 of the recognized events each. Olympic events are held in a 50 meter pool. The four competitive strokes are the butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke, and freestyle. "Freestyle" and "front crawl" are often used interchangeably, but "front crawl" properly refers to an unregulated competitive event rather than to any particular stroke. Swimmers generally choose to swim front crawl in a freestyle event since it is the fastest stroke. In events that require specific strokes, disqualification will occur if the stroke is not swum correctly, for example if the swimmer does not touch the wall with two hands during breaststroke or butterfly they will be disqualified.

I have been a competitive swimmer now for seven years. I love the sport and I am very glad that I got involved in it from the beginning. In my middle school years I mainly swam breaststroke, and honestly I wasn't that good. Once I got to high school I grew about two feet and started getting a lot better. In the past two years, I started doing distance swimming. I also swim some of the relays. Since you are only allowed to swim four events I could not do all of the relays. The possible relays are the 200 medley relay, 200 freestyle relay, and the 400 freestyle relay. Last year, I made it to the sectional finals in the 500 freestyle. I also swim the 200 freestyle. Surprisingly, it is harder than the 500, in my opinion, due to the fact that you have to swim harder even though it is a long distance. Another important part about swimming would be goggles. Without my goggles I doubt I would like swimming as much. A terrible feeling is when the goggles come off, because then you can't see. Swimming takes a lot of endurance, and uses almost every muscle in your body. I would recommend this sport to anyone who is willing to get a great workout.