Swimming is more than bathing. The swimmer is always in motion, he looks for the challenge to survive in a hostile environment or to submerge into a world of silence and seclusion. But also hydrophobia or the symbolic return to our embryonic state have characterised Man's passion for swimming since time immemorial. Be it still waters, flowing rivers or crashing waves - human beings engage with each state of this alien, yet fascinating element as swimmers.
From the Stone Age to the high-tech research laboratories of modern sports science, from Japan, England to Australia, from the courageous British Channel swimmers to the breathless, elderly practitioners of the gentle sidestroke: These two 45-minute episodes trace the history of a sports discipline, a science, a source of endless fascination and a pleasurable, recreational pursuit. They relate the story as a challenge facing Man, both in his natural environment (Part 1) or in the marked lanes of the championship swimming arena.(Part 2).

In the first episode we learn how from the Stone Age until the present day Man has evolved the art of swimming, both as a survival technique and as a cultural pursuit: as evidenced by the Greeks, who enthusiastically pursued it as a recreational activity; or the Romans and the Teutons, who used it as a form of martial training; or the Japanese Samurai who cultivated it as a ceremonial exercise over the centuries. We learn how swimming in Christian-dominated Europe was suppressed before its resurrection during the Enlightenment, whereas the scantily clad, indigenous peoples in other parts of the world were not subject to such moral constraints. We discover why so many artists have felt drawn to water and inspired by swimming, among them Lord Byron and Goethe, who gave almost euphoric expression to their passion for this cool, body-shaping, yet dangerous element.

We observe how people over the centuries have continually sought adventure in the open seas: crossing oceans, battling against the tide or even attempting to conquer the British Channel. Swimming is always a challenge and be it the present-day fight for permission to swim in open waters.

In the second episode, we accompany perfectly trained athletes into the swimming arena. We trace the development of the various swimming styles, ranging from early frog imitations to today's computer-assisted, biomechanically-designed strokes. Or explore the evolution of today's ultra-light full bodyskin suit looking back to the beginnings with the dangerous bulky swimming costumes. We learn why the oldest stroke is also the fastest, we study the many transformations undergone by the breaststroke, and explain why the butterfly did not become accepted in competitive swimming until the 1950s.We study the many, sometime exotic, styles which over the centuries were gradually discarded before the four olympic strokes became established. We visit the various battle lines on which the struggle to gain an extra hundredths of a second is being fought: from the swimmer's muscle-honed body, training philosophy, nutrition to the perfection of the stroke movements and the latest scientific research into improving hydrodynamic streamlining.
The history of swimming travels across time and space, from the Stone Age into the future, spanning an arch from Japan and Australia to Europe and the USA. Our interview partners will include current and past swimmers, famous and lesser known, such as Ian Thorpe, Dawn Fraser, Alexander Popov, Franziska van Almsick, Mark Spitz or Alison Streeter.

The camera is under and above the water, its close proximity to the fluid element links the present day to the Stone Age, archive footage with objets d'art, Victorian bathing costumes with high-tech, body-hugging swimwear, the Japanese Samurai with British Channel swimmers: Against the tide and perfectly streamlined.

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