Plunge for distance

Plunging

Competitor floating after plunging (1918)
First played	1800s. English championship created in 1883.
Characteristics
Categorization	Aquatics
Olympic	1904 only

The plunge for distance is a diving event that enjoyed its greatest popularity in the 19th and early part of the 20th century, even being included as an official event in the 1904 Summer Olympics.^[1] By the 1920s, it began to lose its popularity and slowly disappeared from U.S. and English swim competitions.

Contents 1 Description 2 History 3 Variations 4 Notable plungers 5 References

Description

According to the 1920 Official Swimming Guide of the American Swimming Association, the plunge for distance "is a dive from a stationary take-off which is free from spring from a height of 18 inches above the water.  Upon reaching the water the plunger glides face downward for a period of 60 seconds without imparting any propulsion to the body from the arms and legs."  To determine the total distance traveled, the measurement was taken from the farthest part of the body from the start, "opposite a point at right angles to the base line."[2]  Generally, being heavy was an advantage in the sport.[3]   The 60-second limitation appears to have been instituted at the English Plunging Championship around 1893.[4]

In later years, the event was subject to criticism as "not an athletic event at all," but instead a competition favoring "mere mountains of fat who fall in the water more or less successfully and depend upon inertia to get their points for them."[5] John Kiernan, sports writer for the New York Times, once described the event as the "slowest thing in the way of athletic competition", and that "the stylish-stout chaps who go in for this strenuous event merely throw themselves heavily into the water and float along like icebergs in the ship lanes."[6]  Similarly, an 1893 English report on the sport noted that spectators were not enamored of it, as the diver "moves after thirty or forty feet at a pace somewhat akin to a snail, and to the uninitiated the contests appear absolute wastes of time."[7]

History

The exact origins of the sport are unclear, though it likely derives from the act of diving at the start of swimming races.[8][9]  The 1904 book Swimming by Ralph Thomas notes English reports of plunging records dating back to at least 1865.[10]  The 1877 edition to British Rural Sports by John Henry Walsh makes note of a "Mr. Young" plunging 56 feet in 1870, and also states that 25 years prior, a swimmer named Drake could cover 53 feet.[11]

The English Amateur Swimming Association (at the time called the Swimming Association of Great Britian) first started a "plunging championship" in 1883.[7][12]  By 1900 the "plunge for distance" event was being regularly mentioned in reports on U.S. swimming meets, and was mentioned in the New York Times and Brooklyn Eagle at least as far back as 1898.[13][14]

The event is best remembered today for its one-and-only Olympic appearance in 1904. William Dickey of the USA won the gold medal with a distance of 62 feet 6 inches,^[15][16] which remains the Olympic record.^[17] However, there were only five participants in the event, all from the United States and the New York Athletic Club.^[17][18] Dickey's teammates Edgar Adams and Leo Goodwin took the silver and bronze medals, respectively.

Dickey's Olympic victory was far short of the world record at the time, which for a 60-second limit competition had been set at 78 feet 9 inches by W. Taylor of Bootle, England in 1898.^[10] (Without a time limit, Taylor had also traveled 82 feet in 73.6 seconds.)^[10][19]

Though it never returned to the Olympics, the event remained a standard event in U.S. amateur and collegiate sporting events for some time. By 1912, S.B. Willis, a plunger at the University of Pennsylvania covered 80 feet in 60 seconds, breaking the prior U.S. record of 75 feet 11 inches held by Millard Kaiser.^[20][21]

By 1917 several attempts had been made to abolish the event at college and other competitions in the United States,^[22][23] and the NCAA dropped it in 1925.^[24] The English A.S.A. reportedly ceased holding its official plunging championship after 1937,^[12] though some sources say it ran through 1946.^[25]

In 1941, sportswriter John Kieran referenced the sport as once "a regular event in swimming meets" but "now abandoned."^[26] Since then, the sport is only mentioned occasionally in the context of "can you believe that was an Olympic event?!" news articles.^[17]

Variations

In shorter pools, a variation of the event was based on how fast the contestant traveled the length of the pool. For example, in 1927, it was reported that R.E. Howell had set a new world's record in a 60-foot tank, going "the length of the pool in 0:14 2-5."^[27] Competitions were also reported at 75-foot lengths.^[28]

An 1893 English book on swimming also notes the existence of a variation of plunging where participants dive feet first, which it reports to already be rarely practiced.^[7]

In all plunge events, because divers could not control where they drifted after diving, typically one diver competed at a time.^[7] A 1922 A.A.U. rule change planned to make plungers dive in groups, causing concern that collisions would inevitably occur among participants.^[29]

Notable plungers

• Edgar Adams – Silver medalist at 1904 Summer Olympics, he subsequently set the U.S. plunge record a few times, last setting a record of 70 feet in December 1906.^{[30][31][32][33]}
• G.A. Blake – English plunger who set record mark of 75 feet 7 inches on October 10, 1888.^[34]
• Charlotte Boyle – set U.S. female records in the plunge, also competed as a swimmer in the 1920 Olympics.^[35]
• Horace Davenport (d. 1925) – English plunger who won competitions in 1870s and 1880s, including 1884, 1885, and 1886 English Plunging Championship. Also known for plunging feet first.^[36][37][38] Davenport also was known for endurance swims.^[38][39]
• William Dickey – U.S. plunger from the New York Athletic Club, and winner of the 1904 Olympic gold medal
• Fred Schwedt (1902–1986) – U.S. plunger who set a reported world record at age 17 of 82 feet 9 inches on March 1, 1920, beating the 1906 mark set by W. Taylor.^[40][41] Schwedt was reportedly able to coast 75 feet after 90 days of practice.^[2]
• W. Taylor – Set world records in both 1-minute and untimed competitions in late 1890s. On September 14, 1898, he floated 78 feet 9 inches in 60 seconds, setting the English A.S.A. record. On September 6, 1899 he plunged 82 feet in 73.6 seconds.^[10] In 1906, he reached 82 feet 7 inches,^[36] a world record which stood for many years.
• Francis Winder (F.W.) Parrington – The current world record holder for total distance, whose mark of 86 feet 8 inches was set on September 23, 1933.^[25] Parrington reportedly won the English Plunging Championship 11 times between 1926 and 1939. In September 1926, Parrington broke Taylor's (and presumably Schwedt's) distance record, setting a new mark of 85 feet 6 inches.^[42] A police officer, Parrington died during the Liverpool Blitz on May 8, 1941, at age 42.^[43] In 1986, he was inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame.^[25][44] Parrington's son was also a swimmer, and his grandson David Parrington (who completed for Zimbabwe at the 1980 Summer Olympics) is (as of 2011) the head diving coach at the University of Tennessee.^[45]

References