Nay Pyi Taw 2013

People have swum across lakes and rivers since prehistoric times, but the first organised races did not take place until the 19th century, when the National Swimming Society of Great Britain was created.

None of the four Aquatics disciplines – Swimming, Diving, Synchronised Swimming and Water Polo – has been around for longer than 200 years as a competitive sport.

There were still no official rules or standards when Aquatics featured in the programme for the first modern Olympic Games in Athens 1896, Paris 1900 and St Louis 1904.

The Federation Internationale de Natation (FINA) was formed during the London 1908 Olympic Games competition to act as a governing body for the sport.

Diving is closely linked to Gymnastics. Competitors jump head-first into a pool from a three-metre springboard or a 10-metre solid platform.

They perform a series of twists and somersaults before they hit the water.

The aim is to win as many points as possible from a panel of judges who assess each dive for difficulty and style of execution.
 
As well as individual competitions, there are also Synchronised Diving events, in which pairs of athletes dive in tandem and receive an additional mark for their level of ‘synchronisation’.

Traditional Swimming races take place over distances ranging from 50m to 1500m. Unless it is a Freestyle event, competitors have to use a particular swimming stroke: Breaststroke, Butterfly or Backstroke.

There are also Medley events which combine all three strokes. Olympic races take place in a 50m long pool divided into 10 lanes, with only the middle eight lanes used by swimmers. The swimmer who touches the pool wall first at the end of the race is the winner.

A 10km Open Water race has been added to the Swimming programme for the Beijing 2008 Games. Open Water races are swum outside in areas such as the sea, a lake or a river, and competitors usually swim 2.5km circuits around buoys positioned in the water.

Water polo is a team water game. A team consists of six field players and one goalkeeper. The winner of the game is the team that scores more goals.

Water polo was developed in Europe and the United States as two separate sports. In the United States it was termed softball water polo, with the ball being an unfilled bladder.

The sport was very rough, often degenerating into numerous fights. In 1897, Harold Reeder of New York formulated the first American rules for the discipline, which were aimed at decreasing the excessive roughness of the game.

The game is called water polo because players initially rode on floating barrels that resembled mock horses, and swung at the ball with mallet-like sticks, similar to those used in equestrian polo.

Ultimately, the European style of water polo predominated and today it is the form of the game practised universally.

It is more scientific, faster and less dangerous than the original American game. The current game consists of seven-man teams playing four seven-minute periods.