St. Louis, MO
Swim #likeagirl
Get those girls to British Swim School and empower them to swim #likeagirl. Because –
Girls swim faster than boys – up to age 11. (By age 14, boys are faster and maintain that edge through adulthood.)
In open-water, ultra-distance swimming, however, women do better especially as distances increase.
Swimming is a wonderful sport for girls because they can have boys as teammates and can compete successfully with them. In that respect the sport of swimming is a rarity if not unique. Young boys and girls train together and it is not uncommon for the girls up to age 10 or 11 to outswim their boy training partners.
In races such as the 28.5-mile Manhattan Island Marathon Swim around the rivers of New York City, the women – on average – reigned supreme with an average time of nearly 15 minutes faster (8 hours and 21 minutes for the women to 8 hours and 36 minutes for the men).
Historically, swimming has provided opportunities for women. Women have been competing in Olympics swimming since 1912, eight years before they got the vote in the U.S!
The world’s youngest competitive swimmer is a girl, Alzain Tareq, a 10-year-old from Bahrain who swam in the 2015 World Championships against swimmers twice her age.
The world’s greatest long-distance swimmer is a woman. In 2013, then 64-year-old Diana Nyad became the first person ever to swim the 111-mile distance from Cuba to Florida. She made the swim in fifty-three hours without a shark cage. Nyad had attempted the swim at least six times prior to her record-breaking swim. Nyad also swam around Manhattan in 1975.
Gertrude Ederle was the first woman to swim the English Channel and she beat the time of the fastest man who before her by 1 hour and 59 minutes.
And then there is Kate Ledecky. On February 6, in the preliminaries of the Washington Metropolitan Swimming and Diving Championships, Katie Ledecky showed the swimming world just how fast a girl can swim, with a scorching 4:26.58 to break her own American and National high school records by over two seconds. Ledecky would have been seeded second in the men’s final heat of the 500, behind only Matt Hirschberger who held her, and the men’s field, off with a 4:17.13. She is currently the only woman to own an Olympic Trials qualifying standard in the men’s 1500 freestyle.
British Swim School St. Louis offers premium water survival and swimming lessons for infants, toddlers, children and adults, starting at just 3 months old. We proudly serve the St. Louis communities of Afton, Ballwin, Brentwood, Chesterfield, Clayton, Concord, Crestwood, Creve Coeur, Dardenne Prairie, Eureka, Fenton, High Ridge, Howell Island, Kirkwood, Ladue, Lake St. Louis, Manchester, Maplewood, Maryland Heights, New Town, Olivette, Overland, Richmond Heights, St. Charles, Orchard Farm, St. Paul, St. Peters, Sunset Hills, Town and Country, Valley Park, Webster Groves, Weldon Springs, and Wildwood. Call 314-312-1878 to enroll or find a class online.
