The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1906-01-07

Ranking with the most popular of
winter sports this year is swimming.
With Chicago, New York and San
Francisco all booming the sport, and
new natatoriums building all over the
country, swimmers and swimming rap
idly are gaining a place in the public
interest that they never have held be-
fore.
During the last year average attend
ances and entry lists nearly have dOu-
bled, and this increase of interest has
been accompanied by a more than pro-
pOrtionate increase in the general pro-
fciency of swimmers throughout the
country. Whereas e year ago houses
rarely were sold out at swimming
meets, there are few occasions now
upon which the limited capacity of the
natatoriums at which races are held Is
not taxed to the utmost.
Although it is the outdoor meets
which usually bring out the crowds
swimming is far more OF an indoor than
an outdoor sport. Not only does the
indoor season last three times as long
as the outdoor but the best swimmers
seem to prefer tank races, and enter to
a much greater degree into the promo
ton of the sport indoors. Perhaps it
is that faster work may be done in the
still water of an indoor tank, perhaps it
y
equipped courses, but, in any event,
nine aquats out of ten prefer the in
door game
Undoubtedly swimming is a sport
that merits promotion, the promotion It
is receiving, and more Of it. 1t is
clean, competitive sport, absolutely
unlike any other, although a parallel
to the running game Not a single
sport is there like it, in that it requires
no apparatus, no mechanical aids or
equipments. The swimmer swims as
he was born, making use Of only such
faculties and powers as he was en-
d0wed with. He uses no ball no
racquet, no bat, no glove, no headgear
or shin guards. He wears on some Oc-
casions a .so-called suit, which always
IS abbreviated TO the limit and made OF
the nearest approximation to Isle mos
quito bar that is practicable. The more
he is as nature made him the better he
can perform. It is always a contest Of
man against man. and no element of
weakness in anything but the swimmer
ever can effect the result Of race. To
this fact as much as any other the sport
owes its popularity.
Swimming differs from its sister
sport running, in that there is more
than one way in which speed can be ac-
complished. There is but one way to
ard swimming strokes, with innumer-
able permutations and combinations. A
new method Of swimming has been
added almost each decade for some
time past, yet it is in reality a sport
still in its infancy. Although men have
swan for hundreds Of years, it is only
recently that rapid strides have been
taken in its advancement, and it is
probable that several methods yet IN
known will come to light before the
close of the century.
zS
PROFESSIONALLY the fastest swimmers
Of the day are double overarm men, but
it is not established that it is their
stroke that has made them SO. It is al
ways q probability that 1t is the man,
not the stroke. that is fast, and this is
a problem which defies solution. 1t is
the idea of the most expert authorities
and students of the game that each
man has q stroke adaptable to his me-
chanical makeup. and this point of
view is in all probability the correct
one, naSmuch as to great many
swimmers certain strokes absolutely
are impracticable.
Sc
Although an innuTnerable number of
heavily built men throughout the coun-
try are working hard TO master the
crawl, none of them can make a success
of it. Their legs are too heavy to stay
at the surface Of the water without do
ing some Of the work, and any motion
which tends to keep them at the sur
face is not only retardent but most Of
all takes valuable blood and energy
from their arms, not sufficiently strong
to overcome this weight.
To a swimmer with short and slen-
der legs only is this stroke adaptable,
and the man gifted with heavy and
strong lower limbs cannot make speed
without using this strength.
The scissors kick of the double over
arm and side stroke is just as inadapt-
able to the man who can best shine as
an exponent of the crawl; that is, to
the man Of slight lower build. For a
man with four foot legs like those of
Daniels the scissors kick is the method
which viii GiUa thA hast raassIs~ A,-ls -