Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - The Science of Swimming

Episode Date: February 4, 2026

Swimming was one of only four sports to have appeared at every Summer Olympic Games, beginning in 1896. The sport has been among the most popular events at the Olympic Games since its introduction. In fact, it had the second-highest viewership after Gymnastics in the Paris Olympic Games.  As simple as competitive swimming seems, perhaps no sport has seen greater improvements in performance than swimming. This is due to a host of innovations that have revolutionized the sport. Learn about competitive swimming and the advances that have improved performance in this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Sponsors Quince Go to quince.com/daily for 365-day returns, plus free shipping on your order! Mint Mobile Get your 3-month Unlimited wireless plan for just 15 bucks a month at mintmobile.com/eed Subscribe to the podcast!  https://everything-everywhere.com/everything-everywhere-daily-podcast/ -------------------------------- Executive Producer: Charles Daniel Associate Producers: Austin Oetken & Cameron Kieffer   Become a supporter on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/everythingeverywhere Discord Server: https://discord.gg/UkRUJFh Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/everythingeverywhere/ Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/everythingeverywheredaily Twitter: https://twitter.com/everywheretrip Website: https://everything-everywhere.com/  Disce aliquid novi cotidie Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Swimming was one of only four sports to have appeared at every summer Olympic Games, starting in 1896. The sport has been amongst the most popular events at the Olympic Games since its introduction. In fact, it had the second highest viewership after gymnastics in the 2024 Paris Olympics. However, as simple as competitive swimming seems, perhaps no sport has seen greater improvements in performance than swimming. Learn more about competitive swimming and the advances that have improved performance. on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Fear is the virus is trending on TikTok. Vaccines are poison.

Then your yoga teacher says that sex traffic children are being sacrificed by satanic liberals, but it's all okay. The Great Awakening is coming. What is happening? Every week on Conspiratory Podcast, we explore the fever dreams that suck friends, family, and wellness gurus down the right-wing cult spiral in a search for salvation. A while back, I did an episode on track and field techniques that have broken world records,

some of which are now actually considered rule violations. In a similar yet distinct way, swimming has undergone changes that has largely driven improvements over time. Swimming at the Olympic level is conducted in 50-meter pools, and events range from 50 meters to 1,500 meters. Most events are completed individually, but there are a few team events known as relays. These relays consist of four people and are competed at distances of 2 to 800 meters. Swimming times are typically very close, with many races decided by hundreds of a second,

often making the difference between winning a gold medal and finishing in last place. Over the past century, swimming times have declined markedly as swimmer's speeds have increased. In 1924, the world's record for the men's 100-meter freestyle was set by Johnny Weissmuller, who also happened to play Tarzan in the movies, with a time of 59 seconds. Today, the record is held by Penn Jean-Lee. At the Paris Olympics, he swam the same distance in 46.4 seconds, almost a full 13 seconds faster. For comparison, the gold medal winning times in the men's 100-meter dash have only improved by less than one second over the same time period.

For women, there's also been a dramatic improvement in times. In 1924, Ethelaki won the Olympic gold in the 100-meter freestyle, setting a record at one minute and 12 seconds. At the Paris Games, the gold medalist Sarah Sostrom won the event with a time of 52.16 seconds, nearly 20 seconds faster. So why has the difference been so dramatic over the course of a century? Many people attribute it to basic human advancement, better understanding of diet, being better rested and more intensive training. And certainly those do contribute. But they are

far from being the only reasons and not even the main reasons. Swimming is different from most other sports. Most other sports see changes in records set gradually over time, but in swimming, they tend to come in bunches. Why is this? Much of this can be attributed to technological advancements, particularly shifts in swimwear materials. The most notable change has been in swimsuits. Up until the 1970s, most swimsuits were made out of wool, a material that can add significant drag to a swimmer. In swimming, drag refers to the resistance of the water that the swimmer is trying to pull through. Water is roughly 700 times denser than air and 55 times more viscous. Because of this, drag can be considered the enemy of the swimmer, as something as minimal

as arm hair can add drag to the swimmer's body, which can in turn reduce times. Unfortunately for swimmers, drag worsens as they swim faster. Drag and swimming can be separated into three different types. Pressure drag is the force pushing you backwards in the water, friction drag where the surface of the water hits the swimmer's body, and wave drag, where there is a wave that form in front of the swimmer's body, forcing the swimmer to push the wave away. If you look at modern-day swimsuits, they are noticeably not wool because wool used to add so much drag. Modern-day technical suits are much more streamlined. They're made of high-tech materials like nylon, polyester, and spandex, blended to be lightweight and water repellent, and sewn to compress

the swimmer's body. Suits can incorporate carbon fiber sometimes to maintain their structure, and most are coated with the same type of material used to protect satellites. The suits are typically so tight that putting them on can cause the swimmer's knuckles to bleed. It takes many women 45 minutes to put on a swimsuit, and they typically need to recruit help from fellow swimmers. And all of this is done in the name of reducing drag. Compare this with the woolen suits of the early 20th century. These suits were more like rompers and would absorb large amounts of water. The material was also loose and would sag, which added to drag.

The material effectively added downforce on the swimmer and pulled their bodies into the water. Silk was eventually used for swimsuits starting in 1912. The material was better than wool because it absorbed far less water. However, the suits were seethru, so undergarments needed to be worn underneath them, which added more drag. Early modern tech suits were introduced in the mid-20th century. Swimsuit fabric was made of nylon, making the suit smoother and tighter. They continued to improve becoming what is used in competition today. Eventually, however, the technology became too good.

At the 2008 Beijing Olympics and the 2009 World Championships, the swimsuit brand Speedo introduced a suit made of nylon, lycra, and non-textile polyurethane. Polyurethane swimsuits were essentially full suits that covered the swimmer's body, including the swimmer's legs and chest. The swimsuit worked by exposing less skin to the water while simultaneously making the swimmer more buoyant keeping them higher in the water column. It's widely believed that because of the swimsuits,

25 world records were broken at the 2008 Olympics and 43 world records were broken at the 2009 World Championships. The change was so drastic that the body that governs competitive swimming, today called World Aquatics, but formerly known as Fina, banned any non-textile materials from swimsuits. The goal was to level the playing field as the suit had results which were comparable to doping and threaten the sports fairness. Another major addition to the sport was something so common you might not have even thought about it. Swim goggles.

Goggles are incredibly helpful for swimmers as they allow them to see underwater, which means it becomes easier for the athlete to see the wall and the pool line. and complete flip turns. Another key addition to swimwear was swim caps. Like tech suits, swim caps help reduce drag. The cap essentially eliminates water hitting the head by making the swimmer bald. And many men actually do shave their heads bald in order to reduce drag. Swim caps have also undergone technological advancements, including the use of different materials and fittings tailored to different hair types.

All of these changes have allowed competitive swimmer to perfect the art of fighting drag and going faster in the pool. Though there were plenty of changes to swimwear, some of the changes in the pool itself also helped improve swimmer's times. According to world aquatic rules, competitive pools must follow specific guidelines. These include being 50 meters long and having a depth of at least two meters. The pool walls need to be constructed to standards,

and each lane must be at least 2.5 meters wide. But Olympic pools were not always like this. Initially, there were no pools. Swimming took place in open water until the 1908 London Games. During these games, they were finally moved indoors. Early Olympic swimming was very dangerous for athletes, with water temperatures being recorded as low as 55 degrees Fahrenheit or 13 degrees Celsius. To put that into perspective, modern competition pools are kept at 77 to 82 degrees Fahrenheit or 25,000. to 28 degrees Celsius. A major development was adding mark lanes, or lane lines to the pool, keeping competitors

focused on the race instead of potential collisions, while simultaneously blocking the waves of other competitors. Faster competition times were also achieved through the implementation of 10-lane pools for the 2008 Olympics. Though this change didn't result in as much of a drastic drop in time as the swimsuits, the change did help increase the speed of the swimmers. In the past, pools were just eight lanes, with two swimmers being placed against the wall. The change allowed for the two swimmers on the end to have a buffer lane against the wall, which helped absorb the waves from the swimmers.

Olympic pools are now typically deeper than the required two meters as well, with most competitive pools being three meters. This is because shorter pools caused the water to reflect off the bottom and hit competitors, reducing their speed. Having deeper pools helps prevent this phenomenon, creating less drag on the swimmer. Another major change to the pool was the addition of gutters. Gutters are overflow channels built into the pool's edge that skim surface water to reduce waves and turbulence, helping keep the water level constant and conditions fair for all swimmers. The gutter essentially kills waves before they can even start. Another major addition was the starting block.

Starting blocks first appeared in the 1936 Berlin Olympics. The first starting blocks were small and narrow, essentially a straight, flat block, almost like a box placed above the pool. But these two have developed over time. They're now significantly larger, angled towards the pool, and have a wedge. At it in the early 2000s, the wedge allows the swimmer to push off at a more efficient 90-degree angle, essentially giving a race a more of a track and field start. The improvements in swimming have not all been via technology.

There's also been improvements in technique. The most notable technical change was the underwater dolphin kick. This was swimming's equivalent of the Fosberry flop. The underwater dolphin kick lets swimmers move faster with less drag than surface swimming because the body stays streamlined and the undulating motion of the feet effectively converts core power into forward propulsion. First used at the 1988 Olympics in Seoul by American David Burkhoff in the 100-meter backstroke, the technique allowed him to spend most of the race underwater, breaking the world record.

The strategy was used successfully again by Russian Dennis Pancratov at the 1996 games in Atlanta, as he spent half of his 100-meter butterfly underwater to win Olympic gold. Since then, World Aquatics has ruled that you can only spend 15 meters underwater. Nonetheless, the butterfly kick is a skill used by all Olympic swimmers. The other major technical advancement for racers was the flip turn. The flip turn works like this. The swimmer will somersault as they move into the wall. They will perform a 180-degree rotation and push off the wall into a streamlined position,

allowing the swimmer to change direction seamlessly. This technique is credited to Al Vandaweig, who used the flip turn at the AAU National Sphinxie. swim meet in the 1930s. Van de Wegg employed the flip turn technique in 34, two years before University of Texas coach Tex Robertson was incorrectly credited with its invention. The flip turn was so effective because it allows the athlete to maintain momentum going into the turn. Another benefit of the flip turn is energy conservation. It actually takes less energy to do a full somersault and push off the wall than it does to stop, turn your body, and then push off the wall.

again. Swimming at first glance seems really simple. You just propel yourself through the water as fast as you can go. But swimming has evolved over time, both in technique and in technology, creating major differences in times between today's champions and those of the past. The executive producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is Charles Daniel. The associate producers are Austin Otkin and Cameron Kiefer. Research and writing for this episode was provided by Olivia Ash. My big thanks go to everyone who supports the show

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