Finswimming
competitive watersport using swimfins for propulsion
Finswimming is an underwater sport consisting of four techniques involving swimming with the use of fins either on the water's surface using a snorkel with either monofins or bifins or underwater with monofin either by holding one's breath or using open circuit scuba diving equipment. Events exist over distances similar to swimming competitions for both swimming pool and open water venues. Competition at world and continental level is organised by the Confédération Mondiale des Activités Subaquatiques (CMAS, World Underwater Federation). The sport's first world championship was held in 1976. It also has been featured at the World Games as a trend sport since 1981 and was demonstrated at the 2015 European Games in June 2015.
Rules and description of the sport
Competitors are described within the International Rules as 'swimmers' rather than as finswimmers or divers.
Classes of competition
Competition is divided into two classes: swimming pool and long distance (also called open water).
A swimming pool must be 50 m long by 21 m wide and 1.8 m deep, i.e. an Olympic-size swimming pool (also known as a long course pool) is suitable for the holding of swimming races for either the Olympic Games and a FINA world championships. The International Rules do not permit the use of 25m length pools (known as short course) although these are used in regional and national competition.
“Finswimming” enters the record as competitive watersport using swimfins for propulsion. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Finswimming, competitive and watersport can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 15, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1148620. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1976, 1981 and 2015.
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This entry incorporates text from “Finswimming” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.