There's a fascinating article on the FINA website titled 'World Records, a long history'. It's co-authored by Nick Thierry (of swimnews fame) and Chaker Belhadj, both FINA Press Commission Members. Most out of character for Nick, but not for FINA, there's a mistake in the article when it attributes the oldest standing World Record to Krisztina Egerzegi with her 200m backstroke from 1991 but, in fact, the oldest is Janet Evan's 800m freestyle from 1989.
The youngest (and the youngest in any sport when it was set) was by Karen Muir (RSA) on 1 August 1965 when she swam 1:08.7 for 110 yards backstroke in Blackpool at age 12! She did it in the heats of the 'Junior' (under 16 in English categorisation) English National Championships and, watching from the swimmers' stands, I picked it as a WR at the 55 yard turn.
The oldest record listed in the FINA Annual (compiled by Nick Thierry) is Henry Taylor's 1,500m Freestyle at 22:48.4 set on 25 July 1908 to win the Olympic gold. Yes, that's right, 1908 and metres, quite extraordinary, and, David Davies take note, the last time a British swimmer held the 1,500 World Record. The pool was 100m in length in the centre of the athletic stadium, surrounded by the running track and the cycling track. The diving tower was designed to be collapsible and was hidden underwater during the swimming competition. We haven't really moved on that far, have we?
Henry lived and trained at a place called Chadderton, only 8 or 10km from where I lived. We had a lot of mid-week dual meets in the area so I swam at the Chadderton pool regularly. At the top of the entrace stairs there was a glass trophy case where Henry's four Olympic gold medals were displayed and they were a source of inspiration to me during my development years as a swimmer. The 'racing' suit he's wearing in this photograph is made from silk and, 100 years later, still retains its 'stretchiness'; I know because I've handled it.
He won a whole truckload of trophies but, unfortunately most of them are untraceable because he pawned them after he retired from swimming to buy an Inn but the venture failed and he never reclaimed them.The certificate shown at the top of the article is one of his three from 1908 which are on my office wall. Unfortunately the originals are in Chadderton!
