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Swimmers meant to survive rather than win
Updated: 2006-03-18 15:00 This was said by Alfred Hajos, who at age
of 13, lost his father drowned in the Danube River. The first Olympic
swimming contests, at the 1896 Athens Games, were held in the Bay of Zea in
water with a temperature of only 13 degrees Celsius. Hajos won the 100m and the
1,200m freestyle on the same day (11 April). For the longer race, the nine
entrants were transported by boat to the open water and left alone to swim back
to shore. According to Hajos, "I must say that I shivered from the thought of
what would happen if I got a cramp from the cold water. My will to live
completely overcame my desire to win". In 1924 Hajos won a prize in the
architectural division of the Olympic Art Contest.
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