Swimming at the 1952 Summer Olympics – Men's 400 metre freestyle Swimming at the 1952 Summer Olympics – Men's 400 metre freestyle The men's 400 metre freestyle event at the 1952 Olympic Games took place between 28 and 30 July at the Swimming Stadium. This swimming event used freestyle swimming, which means that the method of the stroke is not regulated (unlike backstroke, breaststroke, and butterfly events). Nearly all swimmers use the front crawl or a variant of that stroke. Because an Olympic-size swimming pool is 50 metres long, this race consisted of eight lengths of the pool. At the conclusion of the race, Boiteux's father jumped into the pool to
Swimming pool popularity of swimming pools began to spread. In the US, the Racquet Club of Philadelphia clubhouse (1907) boasts one of the world's first modern above-ground swimming pools. The first swimming pool to go to sea on an ocean liner was installed on the White Star Line's "Adriatic" in 1906. The oldest known public swimming pool in America, Underwood Pool, is located in Belmont, Massachusetts. Interest in competitive swimming grew following World War I. Standards improved and training became essential. Home swimming pools became popular in the United States after World War II and the publicity given to swimming sports by