Type of site | Sports |
---|---|
Available in | English, Spanish, German, French, Hindi, Italian |
Headquarters | Austin, Texas, United States [1] |
Country of origin | United States [1] |
Owner | SwimSwam Partners, LLC |
URL | swimswam |
Launched | March 12, 2012 [2] |
SwimSwam is a swimming news organization covering competitive swimming along with diving, water polo and synchronized swimming. SwimSwam launched as a website in March 2012 and quickly became the most-read swimming website in the world. [2] [3] [4] SwimSwam was named one of NBC Sports's 100 must-follow social media handles for the 2016 Summer Olympics. [5]
The news organization was founded by Braden Keith, Garrett McCaffrey, Davis Wuolle, Tiffany Stewart and Olympic gold medalist Melvin Stewart, known as Gold Medal Mel. The group of founders teamed up in October 2011, started the SwimSwam YouTube channel on February 17, 2012, and launched the SwimSwam website March 12, 2012. [3] [6] [2] While the website was launched in 2012, its origins trace back to swimming website SwimNetwork.com where Mel Stewart had worked as a traffic driver and blogger. [7] [8] The roots of the YouTube channel can also be traced to SwimNetwork.com, where in 2010 Stewart was the host of an interview show. [8] After USA Swimming shut SwimNetwork.com down, it was launched in 2006 and shut down a few years later, Stewart took his experience and brought his wife and collaborators together to found SwimSwam. [7]
In its first month of operation, the website received more unique visitors than the USA Swimming and Swimming World websites, coming in at over 200,000 unique views. [3] As of July 2021, the videos SwimSwam had published on its YouTube channel had amassed over 19 million views. [6]
Four years after the initial launch of the website and the start of the YouTube channel, Keith and Stewart spearheaded the launch of a print magazine taking some of the first hard copy issues to the 2016 US Olympic Trials to increase brand recognition. [9] Headquarters at time of launch were located in Austin, Texas, though workers were spread throughout multiple states. [1]
Writers publishing articles on swimswam.com are composed both of staff writers and topical contributors. Typically, the website publishes 20 to 100 articles per month. [10] On November 10, 2021, SwimSwam published its landmark 100,000th post on its official website. [11]
The site also compiles a listing of swim-related jobs [10] and ranks NCAA recruits and recruiting classes, [12] among other things. SwimSwam's online job listings section has been noted for its ease of use and streamlining the job application, interview, and hiring process. [13]
On SwimSwam’s YouTube channel, videos published cover aquatics sports-related content including sports such as pool and open water swimming, synchronized swimming, diving, and water polo. [14] It produces a podcast, "SwimSwam Podcast", in which different staff members interview key people in aquatics sports including athletes, coaches, and administrators. [15] [16] SwimSwam provided timely coverage breaking down the rationale of the decision by USA Swimming to postpone the 2020 US Olympic Trials in swimming a year and break the meet into two waves due to the COVID-19 pandemic in the form of a podcast featuring different SwimSwam staff members, including two co-founders. [17]
In 2016, SwimSwam launched a quarterly print magazine called SwimSwam magazine, [9] which was included in Mr. Magazine's "30 Hottest New Launches of the Year." [1]
SwimSwam is known for its yearly Swammy Awards, which honor the top international, [18] NCAA [19] and age group [20] swimmers at the end of each year. Swammy Awards allocated annually also highlight athletes in different aquatics disciplines, such as swimmers in open water swimming. [21] They are also awarded on the continental and national level to swimmers and coaches, such as swimmer of the year of Africa, by gender, and coach of the year of the United States. [22]
The following are a few of the notable stories SwimSwam has reported on or been a part of that were covered by other news agencies:
Klete Derik Keller is an American former competitive swimmer and a convicted participant of the January 6 United States Capitol attack. Before retiring from swimming in 2008, Keller won five Olympic medals, including two golds, at the 2000, 2004, and 2008 Summer Olympics in the 400-meter freestyle and the 4×200-meter freestyle relay.
Arcadia High School is a public high school in Phoenix, Arizona. The school enrolls 1,680 students, who mostly come from feeder schools in the Scottsdale Unified School District.
Scott Daniel Goldblatt is an American former competition swimmer and Olympic gold medalist who specialized in freestyle events. While swimming primarily in the lead position of the 4 x 200 freestyle relay, Goldblatt took a gold and silver in the 2000, and 2004 Olympics and a silver and bronze medal in the 2001 and 2003 World Aquatics Championships. He also performed well in the 2005 Maccabiah Games in Israel, winning several medals.
Melvin Monroe Stewart Jr. is an American swimming promoter, former competition swimmer and world record-holder who won two gold medals and one bronze medal at the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona, Spain. He is the co-founder and publisher of the swimming news website, SwimSwam, and a producer-director of commercials through his company, Gold Medal Media.
Sarah Fredrika Sjöström is a Swedish competitive swimmer specialising in the sprint freestyle and butterfly events.
Richard "Ricky" Berens is an American former competition swimmer, two-time Olympic gold medalist, world champion, and current world record-holder. As a member of the U.S. national team, he holds the world record in the 4×200-meter freestyle relay. He competed in the 4×100-meter and 4×200-meter freestyle relay events, as well as the individual 200-meter freestyle at the 2012 Summer Olympics.
Allison Rodgers Schmitt is an American competition swimmer who specializes in freestyle events. She is a four-time Olympian and a ten-time Olympic medalist.
Alia Shanee Atkinson, OD is a Jamaican five-time Olympian and a former competitive swimmer whose international competition career spanned 19 years, 2003 to 2021 inclusive, at the senior level. At short course World Swimming Championships, she is a ten-time medalist in individual events, including four gold medals, four silver medals, and two bronze medals. She won a total of 124 medals, of which 74 were gold medals, at Swimming World Cup circuits over the course of her career. She won 14 total medals in individual events, 11 gold, 1 silver, and 2 bronze, from her first three Central American and Caribbean Games, in 2006, 2010, and 2018.
Katinka Hosszú is a Hungarian competitive swimmer specialized in individual medley events. She is a three-time Olympic champion and a nine-time long-course world champion. She is owner of a Budapest based swim school and swim club called Iron Swim Budapest, and co-owner and captain of Team Iron, founding member of the International Swimming League.
Ryan Fitzgerald MurphyOLY is an American competitive swimmer specializing in backstroke. He is a four-time Olympic gold medalist and the former world-record holder in the men's 100-meter backstroke.
Lia Neal is a former American professional swimmer who specialized in freestyle events. In her Olympic debut at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, she won a bronze medal in the 4×100-meter freestyle relay. In 2016, she won a silver medal in the same event at Rio de Janeiro. She was the second female African-American swimmer to make a U.S. Olympic team.
Kalyn Keller is an American former competition swimmer who represented the United States at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece. She competed in the women's 800-meter freestyle, and finished fourth with a time of 8:26.97 in the event final. In the women's 400-meter freestyle, she swam in the preliminary heats and recorded the tenth-best overall time of 4:09.83.
Simone Ashley Manuel is an American professional swimmer specializing in freestyle events. At the 2016 Rio Olympics, she won two gold and two silver medals: gold in the 100-meter freestyle and the 4×100-meter medley, and silver in the 50-meter freestyle and the 4×100-meter freestyle relay. In winning the 100-meter freestyle, a tie with Penny Oleksiak of Canada, Manuel became the first Black American woman to win an individual Olympic gold in swimming and set an Olympic record and an American record. At the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, she won a bronze medal as the anchor of the American 4×100-meter freestyle relay team.
Caeleb Remel DresselOLY is an American professional swimmer who specializes in freestyle, butterfly, and individual medley events. He swims representing the Cali Condors as part of the International Swimming League. He won a record seven gold medals at the 2017 World Aquatics Championships in Budapest, nine medals, six of which were gold, at the 2018 World Swimming Championships in Hangzhou, and eight medals, including six gold, at the 2019 World Aquatics Championships in Gwangju. Dressel is a seven-time Olympic gold medalist and holds world records in the 100 meter butterfly, 50 meter freestyle, and 100 meter individual medley.
Michael Charles Andrew is an American competitive swimmer and an Olympic gold medalist. He was the 2016 world champion in the 100 meter individual medley. At his first Olympic Games, the 2020 Summer Olympics, he won a gold medal and set a world record as part of the 4x100 meter medley relay, placed fourth in the 100 meter breaststroke, fourth in the 50 meter freestyle, and fifth in the 200 meter individual medley. Andrew's swims in 2021 at the 2020 Olympics made him the first swimmer to represent the United States at an Olympic Games in an individual breaststroke event as well as another individual event other than an individual medley in the then-125-year-history of swimming at the Summer Olympics. He has won 78 medals at Swimming World Cup circuits.
Florian Wellbrock is a German swimmer. He is the world record holder in the short course 1500 metre freestyle. He won gold medals in the 10 kilometre open water swim and 1500 metre freestyle at the 2019 World Aquatics Championships. At the 2020 Summer Olympics he won the gold medal in the 10 kilometre open water swim and the bronze medal in the 1500 metre freestyle. In December 2021, he won a gold medal in the 1500 metre freestyle at the 2021 World Short Course Championships.
Regan Smith is an American competitive swimmer. As of 2022, Smith trains under Bob Bowman with the Arizona State University professional training group. She is the world junior record holder in the women's long course 100-meter backstroke and 200-meter backstroke and a former world record holder in the long course 100-meter backstroke and the 200-meter backstroke. She competed at the 2020 Summer Olympics in three events representing the United States, winning a bronze medal in the 100-meter backstroke, a silver medal in the 200-meter butterfly, and a silver medal in the 4×100-meter medley relay. At the World Aquatics Championships, she won individual gold medals in the 200-meter backstroke in 2019 and the 100-meter backstroke in 2022 and a relay gold medal swimming the backstroke leg of the 4x100 medley relay in 2023.
Tatjana Schoenmaker is a South African swimmer specialising in breaststroke events. She is the world record holder in the long course 200-metre breaststroke and the African record holder in the long course and short course 100-metre breaststroke as well as the short course 200-metre breaststroke. She is a former African record holder in the long course 50-metre breaststroke and former South African record holder in the short course 50-metre breaststroke. She won the gold medal and set the world record in the 200-metre breaststroke and also won the silver medal in the 100-metre breaststroke at the 2020 Olympic Games.
Kayla Han is an American competitive swimmer specializing in freestyle and individual medley events. She is a 800 m freestyle Champion in 2023 World Junior Championships. In 2022 Junior Pan Pacific Championships, she won silver medalist in the 400-meter individual medley. At the 2021 U.S. Open Championships, Han achieved a fourth-place finish in the 400-meter individual medley and placed seventh in the 800-meter freestyle. She won the B-final of the 400-meter individual medley in Wave I of the 2020 USA Swimming Olympic Trials where she was the youngest swimmer to compete at 13 years of age. A video of the race posted by NBC Sports on YouTube became the most viewed video from the year's Olympic trials.