The first one that come to mind was Michael Phelps winning his 28th Olympic medal, making him the most decorated athlete in the history of the Summer Olympics.
Diana Nyad's 110-mile swim from Cuba to Florida without a shark cage for protection. She was 64!
There are SO MANY more, but these are two of my favorites.
This is a slow build, but when Todd DeSorbo started using Ken Ono in his math-based analysis of his swimmers at UVA. And we are now seeing it with probably the most dominant program in a generation. Individual moment? Kate Douglass dropping a 1:48.37 in the 200IM......nearly 2 seconds faster than the previous NCAA record. Yes, I'm biased, 67Princess is a collegiate swimmer (though not at UVA!), and swam against the Walsh sisters in high school.
I think this is the greatest relay in swimming history https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4dPLZko5wc 1976 US Women defeating the cheaters (this seems to be the Canadian video, but still good.)
Are you talking about competition results, competitive careers, and the like? Are are you looking for things like the advent of the flip turn (tumble turn)? I think that was a big ‘moment’ in the history of swimming.
That's a question I hadn't considered. I was thinking moments as in competition results, but you raise a good point. Charlie Daniels "inventing" American crawl might be another because it gave us the freestyle stroke we know today.
