The sport of swimming dates from Ancient Egyptian and Ancient Greek times, and it has featured at every modern Olympic Games. Do you know how to swim? If so, have you ever been in a race? Find out more about the history of swimming and learn some vocabulary and useful language.

Part 1: Rules
?The Olympic pool is 50m long and 21m wide. Floating lines, called lane lines, divide the pool into eight lanes.
?Each swimmer must stay in his lane.
?The different ways of swimming are called “strokes”.
?There are four strokes that swimmers can use: crawl or freestyle, breaststroke, butterfly and backstroke.
?Races can be:
??? ?Individual but using the same stroke e.g. 50M freestyle or 200M breaststroke.
??? ?Relay which means a race between teams of swimmers. Each swimmer swims one leg (length of the pool) of the event.
??? ?Medley which means swimmers or relay teams swim a combination of backstroke, breaststroke, butterfly and freestyle.
?In most races swimmers begin by diving into the water from starting blocks.
?In the backstroke swimmers begin the race in the water.
?They swim down their lanes to the end of the pool and touch it. A touch pad records their time. Then they turn and swim back.
?Backstroke and freestyle swimmers use tumble turns.
?Breaststroke and butterfly swimmers use open turns.
?In long races a lap card shows the swimmers how many laps remain.

Part 2: Q&A

I love swimming. Do you?
Not really. I can't swim very well. I don't like the water.

The Ancient Greeks would say you need educating. They thought a man who couldn't swim was ignorant.
Well, I can swim a little. I can do the doggy-paddle but that's not real swimming, is it?

Actually, the doggy-paddle was probably man's first stroke. We've been swimming like that since pre-history. Then the doggy-paddle developed into the breaststroke…
What about the other strokes?

Well, some American Indians introduced the crawl to Britain in 1844.
Did it become popular straightaway?

No! The Indians splashed so much the British didn't want to learn the new stroke. They thought it wasn't polite, even though it was much faster than breaststroke.
Did everyone think so?

I don't know - but the crawl only became popular in 1902.
Why was that?

An Australian called Richard Cavill swam the crawl and set a new world record. He copied the way the people of the Solomon Islands swam. That's how modern freestyle began!
What about the butterfly stroke? That looks the hardest to me.

Perhaps that's why the first butterfly event was only in the Melbourne Games in 1956.
And how many swimming events were there in the first modern Games?

There were only four events in the first Games, but in the next Games there will be thirty-four!
That's amazing! I bet there have been other changes, too.

Yes, in the first games only men could compete. And there wasn't a heated, indoor pool - the athletes had to swim in the sea!
Really? Lucky it was a Summer and not a Winter Olympics event!

游泳：

游泳運動可追溯到古埃及、古希臘。古希臘人甚至認為游泳是人應(yīng)該掌握的基本技能?，F(xiàn)代奧林匹克運動會創(chuàng)立以來，游泳一直是奧運會比賽項目。奧運會競技游泳主要采用四種姿勢比賽，即自由泳、仰泳、蛙泳和蝶泳。“狗刨”也許是人類學(xué)會的第一種泳姿，后來發(fā)展為自由泳。而蝶泳相對較晚出現(xiàn)，直到1956年才第一次在奧運賽場上露面。在第一屆奧運會上，競技游泳項目僅包含4個小項，北京奧運會上已增加到34項。

[Key Words]

Strokes:?crawl or freestyle 自由泳 ?breaststroke 蛙泳? butterfly 蝶泳? backstroke 仰泳

Equipments:? swimming cap 泳帽 ?swimsuit 泳衣 ?goggles 泳鏡；護目鏡