Why are Aussies so good at swimming?

Australian gold in the Olympic swimming pool, as always. So how come Australia produces so many champion Olympic swimmers?

Well, a lot has to do with Australia (and New Zealand) having the world's highest incidence of asthma, a chronic lung disease – around 10% of Aussies have it.

Talk to many Aussies and they'll be able to name a huge list of people they know who have asthma. Someone having an asthma attack at school was almost a daily occurrence. And with so many people having asthma, it does mean that asthma awareness is also high.

Swimming is regularly suggested as a great way to build lung capacity, so it's no surprise to find that many Olympic swimmers, and not just the Aussies,  got into swimming as children as therapy for their own asthma.

Added to this is Australia's perfect climate for swimming, the abundance of swimming pools, whether it be in people's backyards or the many Olympic-sized ones in the suburbs, the fact that 90% of Australians live within easy reach of a beach, as well as the beach and pool culture to go with this, such as our world-famous surf lifesavers.

But while swimming and water safety are a mandatory part of the curriculum, and there's the long-standing tradition for Australian schools to hold an annual "swimming carnival" (a school-wide competitive swimming competition), at least 40% of Australian children leave primary school (at age 11/12) not being able to swim, so knowing how to swim is not across the board for Aussies.

Australia also gave to the world the fastest swimming stroke, the Australian Crawl, more popularly known as "Freestyle". Actually, "freestyle" in a swimming event means that competitors are free to use any stroke, with the Australian Crawl having been the most popular stroke by far for decades.

And Australia also gave the generic term for men's swim briefs "speedos", named after the originally Australian swimwear company Speedo. In Australia these are otherwise known colloquially as "budgie smugglers". "Budgie" is the Australian diminutive for the Australian bird "budgerigar", otherwise known as "parakeets".

Need to swim your way around the pool of Australian language and culture to get ahead in the lucrative Australian market, drop me a line and let's see how I can help you.