Swimming: Swim, or go take a dive

At the first modern Olympics in 1896, three swimming contests were held. However, there were no universally acceptable rules, guidelines or regulations governing the different activities that came under 'swimming'.

In order to unify the rules and create a forum for international tournaments, representatives of Germany, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Great Britain, Hungary and Sweden met in July 1908 at Manchester to form a worldwide association for swimming.

Since that meeting in a Manchester hotel, swimming, or for that matter aquatics, as a sporting discipline, has come a long way. The sport has seen remarkable changes taking place in the Olympic arena as well.

Aquatics

Aquatics, by itself, includes several separate disciplines: swimming, synchronised swimming, diving and water polo.

Swimming: With things such as temperature-controlled pools, wave-killing gutters and lane markers designed to reduce turbulence, swimming has indeed emerged as one of the glamour events of the Olympics.

Women's swimming events became a regular feature at the Olympic Games in 1912. Men and women now compete in 16 events each.

There's no doubt that the US men's team are in a class of their own! The only question is, whether they will be able to match the performance of the 1976 team that dominated the Montreal Games, winning 12 of the 13 gold medals. Michael Phelps, who has already become quite a rage in the pool, will be looking to reach or even better Mark Spitz's 1972 record of seven gold medals in one Olympics.

Among the women, there is Jenny Thompson, the most celebrated American woman at the Games with 10 medals, including eight golds.

The toughest challenge for the Americans in Athens is likely to come from the Australian team, led by Ian Thorpe, who won four golds, five silvers and three bronze medals in 2000. The Russian contingent, led by Alexander Popov, and the Chinese swimming team are also strong medal contenders.

Among the non-US women medal contenders, Dutchwoman Inge De Bruijn is one of the favourites to repeat her feat in the 50 and 100 metres freestyle races, as well as the 100-metre butterfly event.

Synchronised swimming: synchronised swimming was first held in 1984 during the Los Angeles Olympics with solo and duet events. These events were also contested at the 1988 Games in Seoul and 1992 Games in Barcelona. However, both events were discontinued in 1996 in Atlanta, replaced by an 8-person team event. The programme for the Sydney 2000 Games included the team event as well as the return of the duet event and in Athens too the same format is likely to be maintained.

Diving: diving was contested at the 1904 Olympics in St. Louis and since then, it has been a constant feature on the Olympic programme. The traditional men's and women's 10-metre platform and three-metre springboard diving events were repeated for the synchronised section.

The United States dominated diving since its introduction as an Olympic discipline. However, towards the late 1980s, the Chinese entered diving in a big way.

Water polo: men's water polo was held at the 1900 Olympics in Paris for the first time and it has been contested at all Games since 1908. Women's water polo made its Olympic debut during the 2000 Sydney Games. The Australian team became the first to win gold in this new event.

The field for the Athens Games will be exceptionally strong, led by defending gold medallists Hungary. The rest of the field consists of Italy, Serbia/Montenegro, Spain, Greece, US, Kazakhstan, Egypt, Australia, Croatia, Germany and Russia. In the women's division, the US are the top-ranked team in the world.

Format

Swimming: Each race has a maximum of eight swimmers. Preliminary heats in the 50, 100 and 200-metre lead to the semi finals and finals, based on the fastest times. In relays and individual events of 400 metres or more, the eight fastest finishers in the preliminaries advance directly to the finals.

Synchronised swimming: Competition for both, team and duets, comprise a technical and a free schedule. Each schedule is performed to music within a specified time limit. In the technical routine, swimmers perform specific moves in a pre-determined order. The free routine has no restrictions on music or choreography. Points are awarded on the basis of degree of difficulty, element of risk, flawlessness of performance, innovation in choreography.

Diving: Competitors perform a series of dives and are awarded points up to 10, depending upon their elegance and skill. The points are then adjusted for the degree of difficulty, based on the number and types of manoeuvres attempted, such as somersaults, pikes, tucks and twists.

Water polo: Eight teams qualify for the women's division at the Olympic Games, while 12 compete in the men's division.

The matches are played in quarters. Each quarter is of seven minutes duration and the game features seven players on a team, including one goaltender.

The goalie guards an area about 3x10 ft and is the only player able to touch the ball with both hands.

All this happens while players are treading or swimming in water, about two metres deep. In the men's event, the qualifying teams are divided into two pools of six for a round-robin preliminary heat.

The top four teams from each pool advance to the quarterfinals and the winners then advance to the medal rounds.

STARS TO WATCH

Swimming

Alexander Popov Russia
Pieter van den Hoogenband, Netherlands
Ingy de Bruijn, Netherlands
Michael Phelps, US
Jenny Thompson, US
Grant Hackett, Australia
Ian Thorpe, Australia

Synchronised Swimming

Duets Event
Australia, Russia, Canada, US, China & Switzerland

Teams Event
Russia, Canada ,Greece, US & China

Diving

Dmitry Sautin, Russia
Alexandr Doboroskok, Russia
Peng Bo, China
Guo Jingjing, China
Wu Minxia, China

Water Polo

Mens Event
Hungary, US, Greece, Serbia Montenegro

Womens Event
Russia, US, Italy, Australia