Finest swim of all time

Some remarkable swims and swimmers have been mentioned. As a distance swimmer myself I too find the swims of Grant Hackett pretty awesome. However, at the other end of the spectrum I'm surprised no one's yet mentioned Alex Popov - double Olympic Gold medallist in successive Olympics and virtually untouchable over a decade. Add to that his unfortunate (!!!) stabbing incident and he still comes back and competes at top level!!! Amazing!

Skip, I tip my cap to your comments. Very good points, and I enthusiastically support your comments about Grant Hackett. For all the recognition he does receive, he is still the most underated Olympic Champion of recent history. Think about it, without Ian Thorpe, Hackett would have dominated the 400 free, and be right there with Hoogie and Michael Phelps in the 200. The way people train for world class 1500 racing, especially the Aussies, you just don't see 1500 swimmers able to do that well in the shorter races. Hackett is just amazing; Phelps and Thorpe are the only two other people in his league. I'm not sure I agree that Michael Phelps has less time left to develope now than Gary Hall did when he broke the WR in high school. Fer cryin' out loud, Michael is still a college student. He's not an NCAA scholarship athlete, but he's still the same age as those folks. He is still improving by leaps and bounds in some of his events; indeed, he is still adding events to his schedule. And most important of all, the economics of swimming have changed such that he can continue to make a good living, and still perform at a World Class level through his 20s. Seeing him compete in the 2008 and 2012 Olympics would not be a stretch at all, and if he keeps working his strokes, especially the *** stroke where World Class *** strokers can really make up time in the IMs, I think 3:59 is possible.

George Breen set worlds record heat 1500 m 1956 Olympics. Lost in slower time. Bill Yorzyk wins 200 m Butterfly at 1956 Olympics. Two of the best swims I have witnessed. Of course this was before anyone knew how to swim. Almost forgot Dawn Fraser she was great but was always in trouble for her antics.

That doesn't mean we can't pick Janet's swim as the best of all time, which I do. Besides the actuall swim, there was national glory on the line. The doped-up East Germans vs. the Valley Girl. And she trounced them. It's amazing that before Manaudou, no one came within a second of the record. That says a lot.

Dobbie: I think your a brave soul to bring this up. You will probably never get anybody to agree with what the greatest swim of all time is because people will come up with an arguements as to why one performance is better than the other. As my friend Phil Whitten says "whenever a writer puts together a list of the greatest anythings, someone older, someone more knowledgeable or simply someone with a better memory is sure to write saying, "How could you possibly have left out so-and-so?" With that being said I will give you what I think are some of the greatest performances of all time based on the length of years the person either set a FINA World Record or an American Record. The reason I am bringing in American Records is because you would exclude some great Short Course Yard swims by people. So here are some of the ones I can think of and there is no particular rank of what is greater, just swims that I feel are some of the best in history of the sport. Dawn Fraser's 100 Free World Record and performances would have to be considered. Dawn is the first swimmer to win an Olympic event (100 Free) in 3 straight Olympics and probably would have won a fourth in 1968, but could not compete for political reasons. But the real reason I would consider her is because she held the World Record from 1956 to 1972. In 1956, she lost the WR to two swimmers but got it back by the end of the year and lowered it 9 times to the time of :58.9 in 1964. That record was broken in 1972 by Shane Gould with a time of :58.5. What is interesting is that her time would have been competitive in the 1972 Olympics and who knows if she would have been permitted to swim, she could have possibly won 5 gold medals in the same event at five Olympic games. Kristini Egerszegi's 200 Back World Record and performances would have to be considered also. Kristini is the second person to win an Olympic event (200 Back) in 3 straight Olympics and probably would have won the 100 Back had she elected to swim that event at the 1996 Olympics for 2 straight in that event. Her split in the Medley relay was faster than the winning time in the 100 Back. But again the real reason I would consider this to be one of the best is the World Record time of 2:06.62, which still stands today. Also this swim was done with the old back stroke turn rule which is a lot slower than the turns people are doing today. This record was set in 1991 and has lasted 16 years. Mary T Meager's World Records in both the 100 and 200 Fly have to be considered for both LCM and SCY. Mary T first set the 100 Meter Fly record in 1980 at :59.26 and then lowered it to :57.93 in 1981 and that record stood until 1999 when Jenny Thompson broke it with a :57.88. So she owned the World Record for almost 20 years. The 200 Meter Fly record was set first in 1979 and she lowered her record to 2:05.96 in 1981. That record was broken by Susan O'Neil with a 2:05.81 in 2000. So she owned the World Record for almost 21 years. Johnny Weismuller's World Records in the 100 Meter and 100 Yard Freestyle have to be considered. All of his Yard swims were considered World Records at the time he swam because FINA recognized them and all World Records in Yards until 1957. He held the 100 Meter World Record from 1922 until 1934. He set the World Record in the 100 Meter Free in 1922 at :58.6 and lowered it to :57.4 in the 1924 Olympics. It stood there until Peter Fick broke it with a :56.8 in 1934. The 100 Yard record was set in 1927 at :51.4 at the Univ. of Michigan. It was tied by 4 guys in the early 1940's. I personally knew one of the 4 guys (Bill Prew) and it was finally broken in 1944 by Alan Ford of Yale. It was rumored that Johnny swam an incredible :48.5 while training with Walter Spence, but he was a professional and retired by then so unlike today it could not be counted. Adolph Kiefer records in the Backstroke have to be considered especially the 100 Meter and 100 Yard records. He set his first 100 Meter record in 1935 and lowered it to time of 1:04.8 in 1936 and it stood until 1948 when Alan Stack lower it to a 1:04.0. He also had the old 150 Yard Back stroke record for about 14 years. One of his best records was his High School record in the 100 Yard Back in a 20 Yard pool which stood for 23 years. I believe he went in the high :57's and it was not broken until Lou Schafer did in the high :56's in 1958. The next year Lou Schafer broke the American Record in the 100 Yard Back as a High School swimmer with a :55.2 so that record was broken by a very good swimmer. These are just some and I am sure there are more out there that people can come up with. This kind of thing can be fun as long as disagreements and arguements are not personal and no one is absolutely right.

Frank Thompson said: Hoffam: You must mean American Record because they show it as a US Open and a NCAA Record in the Meet Records section of the USA Swimming website. And you know why he can hold an American Record. I was looking at the event history file, which is apparently not as current as the meet records file. Yes I understand Bousquet cannot have the American record since he is French.

Although I am not personally very interested in distance events, Janet Evans 400 free LCM world record swim of 4:03.84 in 1988 (Seoul Olympics) is a damned impressive swim. She negative split the race - 2:02.14 and 2:01.71. The record still stands. A full story about this race: www.connmasters.org/.../The Perfect Race-JEvans 400 free Seoul.pdf

Um actually, Laure Manadou beat Janet's record this past May. She swam a 4:03:03.

How about the 8:16 in the 800?????????????????

Best swim of all time is revelant to the time you lived in and the progress of technique. Who swam better then Johnny Weismuller in his time. I never saw him swim at his best I was not around but there is a best swim around the corner every day.