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Stories of the Olympic Games: Swimming

Episode 4 of 4

Series exploring the history of the Olympics through the stories of athletes, here looking at the evolution of swimming and the development of its four different strokes.

This series telling the history of the Olympics takes to the water to explore how swimmers have swum faster and faster to win gold.

From its earliest beginnings in chilly waterways open to the elements, the Olympic swimming competition has driven the development of technique in all the four strokes.

Faster, Higher, Stronger reveals how the front crawl first evolved in Australia after a Solomon Islander introduced the stroke from the rough seas of the Pacific. How the butterfly grew out of the breaststroke, but only after swimmers began swimming the older, more sedate stroke with a double over-arm action to go faster.

Combining cutting-edge filming techniques to analyse performance, period reconstruction and unique archive footage from the very earliest Olympics onwards, the programme includes interviews with great Olympic champions such as Mark Spitz, Dawn Fraser and Ian Thorpe, as well as contributions from British medal winners Sharron Davies, David Wilkie and Adrian Moorhouse.

1 hour

Last on

Thu 16 Aug 2012 00:55

Music Played

Timings (where shown) are from the start of the programme in hours and minutes

  • Fink

    Wheels

  • Jerry Lee Lewis

    Great Balls of Fire

  • 罢谤别苍迟别尘酶濒濒别谤

    The Forest

  • Isaac Hayes

    Hyperbolicsyllablecsesquedalymistic

  • Speech Debelle

    Buddy Love

  • Andreya Triana

    A Town Called Obsolete

  • Andreya Triana - Lost where I belong

    Munk 777 remix

  • Jono McCleery

    It's All

  • Speech Debelle

    Studio backpack rap

  • Booka Shade

    Charlotte

    • Booka's No Pain No Gain remix.

Credits

Role Contributor
Narrator Adrian Lester
Series Producer Alastair Laurence
Director Matt Pelly
Producer Matt Pelly

Broadcasts

The Olympians who went faster, higher and stronger

Take a look at the sports people who pushed the limits of human endeavour.