Olympic-class ocean liner so, the "Olympic"-class ships were built to surpass rival Cunard's largest ships, "Lusitania" and "Mauretania", in size and luxury. "Olympic", along with "Titanic" and the soon to be built "Britannic", were intended to be the largest and most luxurious ships to operate on the North Atlantic, but not the fastest, as the White Star Line had already switched from high speed to size and luxury. The three vessels were designed by Thomas Andrews and Alexander Carlisle. Construction of "Olympic" started in December 1908 and "Titanic" in March 1909. The two ships were built side by side. The construction of "Britannic"
Netball and the Olympic Movement try to get netball included on the Olympic programme. Opinions were initially split inside the newly formed organisation as to whether this was a goal worth striving for, but ultimately it was decided to work towards Olympic recognition. The federation's first application was rejected because it referred to the sport as women's basketball and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) said there could not be two different sports with the same name on the Olympic programme. This rejection was a driving factor for changing the name of the sport. There was tremendous resistance in Australia and New Zealand to this. IFNA