The main appeal of finswimming is the speed that a finswimmer can reach. The world record for the 50 mts freestyle is 20.91 seconds by Cesar Ciello from Brasil, in finswimming it is 13.98 seconds in 50 mt Apnea by Pavel Kabanov, from Russia, almost 13 kms per hour!
Finswimming is a discipline where swimmers compete with a monofin, a fiberglass foil made up with rubber shoes, swimming with dolphin kick and stretched arms over the head.
Monofins allow a 33% increase in speed over conventional swimming. Many people consider finswimming the Formula 1 of water sports, due to the unbelievable speed that a finswimmer can reach, almost the same speed as a tiny motor boat! Furthermore finswimming competition guarantees a very attractive show for the public due to the speed of the contest and the similarity of athletes swimming style with a dolphin swimming. Another one of the great appeals of finswimming is that finswimmers do not need to be good swimmers. Everyone can practice it, juts need a couple of flippers or a monofin and good willing in learning this sports. Indeed, there is some evidence that top classical swimmers may make poor finswimmers. This two sports are complementary but completely different. Furthermore many people can think finswimming is a new sport: wrong! First finswimmers where Italian soldiers during second world war: by that military experience this sport was born and developed, beginning from Italy, where however, hundreds of years before, a genius like Leonardo da Vinci was the first to have the idea of enhancing human fiscal power in the water designing the first prototype of flippers.
Finswimming is a very popular sport especially in Russia, Ukraine, China and some western European countries such as Italy, France, Spain, Greece or Germany. Actually finswimming is practiced in more than 100 countries, but in most of them the number of finswimmer is reduced. National and international championships take place every year, bringing this sport all around the world. Unfortunately finswimming still not have reached an international fame, probably due to the poor implication both of many important countries, such as United States, and of the international federation, CMAS, but in the last years is growing up its movements, especially thanks to the job of many national federations which are working in making finswimming more popular all around the world.
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