OLYMPIC HISTORY

Swimming has been part of the Games since the beginning of the modern Olympiad in 1896 but the first two Games were rather quirky aquatic affairs, and exclusively male.

The first was a 100 metres (or thereabouts) race between three Greek sailors across the Bay of Zea near Piraeus (not far from a place where cave drawings offer evidence of an ancient sport) that started with the rivals jumping from a rowing boat. The winner was Ioannis Malokinis in 2 minutes and 20 seconds.

The second Games, in Paris, involved races up the Seine, one in which obstacles were placed in the way of swimmers and one where the point was to swim the whole distance under water - not much fun for the spectators! Still, at least the races were held with the tide, not against it. That helped John Arthur Jarvis on his way to capturing the 4,000 metres freestyle (an event never seen before or since) in less than an hour - a time many of those who swim for charity these days would be quite proud of.

In those two early Games, the Trudgen took the winners to their medals but backstroke was introduced in Paris and breaststroke surfaced as an Olympic stroke in 1908. It was not until 1956 in Melbourne that butterfly was born at the Olympic Games.

The first indication of the modern race programme emerged in St Louis, in 1904, with races of 50, 100, 200, 400 and 1,500 metres, all of which will be raced in Sydney. Yet there were still no women, who raced for the first time in the 1912 Games of Stockholm.

Swimming soon became one of the glamour events of the Olympic Games and remains the sport for which tickets are sold most rapidly - true of the past three Games and most certainly true for Sydney, where tickets for the swimming finals will be among the hottest properties in Australia in September.

The early glamour of the sport opened up vast opportunities to the likes of Duke Paoa Kahanamoku, a Haiwaiian who became a Hollywood actor and won the 1912 and 1920 100 metres freestyle titles. The man who beat him for the title in 1924 would become yet more famous on the silver screen; Johnny Weissmuller, the American who became the first to swim faster than a minute for 100 metres freestyle (in 1922), an event he won at both the 1924 and 1928 Games before going on to become the original Tarzan in Hollywood.

In 1932, Buster Crabbe got his passport to Hollywood in the same way. He won the 400 metres freestyle by what he described as the tenth of a second that "changed my life".

The early programme relied heavily on the freestyle races, with only 200 metres races being held on breaststroke and backstroke until 1964, when the modern Olympic programme started to emerge. It was in Tokyo in 1964 that the first medley race appeared, over 400 metres. The 200 metres was introduced in 1968 but was dropped in 1976 and 1980 before returning in 1984.

Don Schollander, of the United States, was the first man to win four gold medals at the same Games in swimming.

Eight years later, Mark Spitz became an Olympic immortal with that all-time record of seven gold medals at one Games. In the month in which the US Olympic trials and the Munich Olympic Games were staged in the summer of 1972, Spitz set 14 world records, an achievement unsurpassed. Matt Biondi, the Freestyle and butterfly sprinter of the US, won five gold medals in 1988, the closest any man has come to emulating Spitz, whose success was so magnificent that it overshadowed one of the greatest Olympic efforts by a woman swimmer in history.

Shane Gould held every freestyle world record between 100 and 1,500 metres simultaneously and arrived at the Games in Munich as favourite to win the four freestyle races she had entered. Against fierce opposition from the US, Gould won three gold medals (200 and 400 metres freestyle and 200 metres medley), a silver (800 metres) and a bronze (100 metres).

If Spitz and Gould were great for one Games, then Dawn Fraser and Krisztina Egerszegi were great for three each. Fraser, of Australia, won the 100 metres freestyle title in 1956, 1960 and 1964, while Egerszegi, of Hungary, won the 200 metres backstroke title in 1988 (against formidable and weighty East German opposition), 1992 and 1996. They are the only two swimmers ever to win gold in three consecutive Games.

Vladimir Salnikov, of Russia, might well have done so had it not been for the 1984 boycott. Salnikov was the first man to swim 1,500 metres freestyle inside 15 minutes, his 14min 58.27sec victory in Moscow in 1980 the greatest swim of those Games. Having missed the 1984 Games and having aged as a new generation of distance freestylers emerged, Salnikov arrived at the Seoul Games of 1988 with little hope in his heart. His victory over two Germans, one from the West, one from the East, remains one of the most popular and emotional victories in Olympic swimming.

The East German era dawned in the pool after the 1972 Games. Swimmers fed on a diet of anabolic steroids, according to Stasi (East German secret police) records from the time, dominated women's swimming from 1973 until the Berlin Wall collapsed in 1989. The multi-medal winners from the East German champions factory started with Kornelia Ender, with four gold medals in Montreal in 1976 - two of those, over 200 metres freestyle and 100 metres butterfly - within half an hour of each other.

The last wundermadchen was Kristin Otto, who won six gold medals in 1988, the most ever won at one Games by a woman.

The successes of the East Germans deprived generations of women of their true place in swimming and Olympic history. One of the the most noteworthy "victims" was Shirley Babashoff, of the US. Beaten by Gould in Munich in middle distance freestyle, she returned to the Games in 1976 to make amends; she won three silver medals behind seemingly invincible East Germans over 200, 400 and 800 metres freestyle.

Her consolation came in the 4 by 100 metres freestyle relay, which remains to this day one of the most poignant races in Olympic swimming history. The US team beat the East Germans by more than half a second and a crowd fatigued by the repetitive and predictable victories of the East Germans, roared the roof off the Canadian pool. For Babashoff, the lasting reality of the East German doping programme was a legacy of a record six gold medals that failed to produce the acclaim in the US that she might otherwise have received.

The boycotts of 1980 and 1984 threw up many an odd result. In 1980, the absence of the US was a severe blow to the quality of the competition. Mary T Meagher, of the US, arguably the greatest woman swimmer of the 20th century - her 1981 Beamonesque world record over 200 metres butterfly still stands - was among those who suffered because of the boycott in 1980. She went on to win three gold medals at the 1984 Games in Los Angeles.

The stars of the 1988 Games were Matt Biondi and Janet Evans, both of the US. Evans was nicknamed "Miss Perpetual Motion", so frantic and fast was her front crawl as she sped to victory over 400 metres (in a world record that still stands) and 800 metres, with a further gold medal coming her way in the 400 metres medley.

If she was something of a spectacle, the lack of one in the men's backstroke races prompted a rule change after the Seoul Games. David Berkoff, of the US, developed a technique within the letter of the law on backstroke that enabled him to dolphin-kick underwater on his back until past the 35-metre mark. He would disappear at the start and reappear a bodylength ahead of the rivals almost at the end of the first length. He arrived in Seoul as world record holder and title favourite over 100 metres. However, Daichi Suzuki, of Japan, had been practising the technique in secret and beat Berkoff at his own game.

For fear that a race in which all eight finalists would spend much of the race out of sight, Fina, the world governing body adopted a rule to oblige the swimmer to surface no more than 15 metres from the wall out of starts and turns.

The greater show in Seoul came from Biondi, winner of the 50 and 100 metres freestyle and a member of the three winning US relays. Biondi was considered one of the all-time greats and the greatest freestyle sprinter of his era - until his defeat in 1992 at the hands of Alexander Popov, the Russian who in 1996 became the first since Weissmuller in 1928 to retain the 100 metres freestyle title. Popov remains one of the big names of the sport.

The Russian shared top honours in Atlanta 1996 with Kieren Perkins, of Australia, who retained the 1,500 metres freestyle title against all odds.

Egerszegi, with that third victory over 200 metres backstroke, was the star of the women's events, though much attention was focused on the woman who beat her in the 400 metres medley - Michelle Smith, of Ireland. Smith's results in 1996 - three gold medals and a bronze - remain one of the greatest aberrations of swimming history. So phenomenal was Smith's progress - from someone who could not make an international final for the eight years of her international career leading up to 1993 to a triple Olympic champion at 26 after her coaching was taken up by a Dutch athlete suspendned because of drugs offences - and so noticeable was the physical change in her, that accusations of drug taking were rife.

Smith has always denied taking any banned substances. She was banned from swimming for four years in 1998, however, for tampering with a drug test sample of urine. The sample contained a banned substance but the authorities only pursued a case of tampering against the swimmer, for the purposes of securing a permanent ban that would hold up in the Court of Arbitration for Sport. The strategy paid off and Smith lost her appeal against suspension in 1999.

The most successful swimming nation is the United States, though in men's freestyle races Americans have struggled to keep up with Australians and Europeans in the past 16 years.

Australia defeated the United States for the first time in terms of gold medal tally at the Pan Pacific championships in 1999. Australian strength lies in its male freestylers, Thorpe, Grant Hackett and Michael Klim, and in Susie O'Neill, the reigning Olympic champion, who aims to remove the longest swimming record - over 200 metres butterfly - from the books. If she does it at Homebush, or even retains her title, the wall of sound from the crowd may itself be the stuff of swimming legend.