Finswimming

Lore & Background

Finswimming developed in Europe after rubber fins became available in the 1930s. Luigi Ferraro organized the first fin-swimming competition in the sea in 1951, followed by a 100 km ocean swim in 1955. The first European Championship of Subaquatics Technical in Angera, Italy in August 1967 included finswimming events over 40 m and 1000 m. The first separate European Finswimming Championship was held in Locarno, Switzerland in 1969. The first World Championships took place in Hanover, Germany in 1976, and the sport was included in the inaugural World Games in Santa Clara, California in 1981. The monofin, introduced in the early 1970s, led to the breaking of all world records by the end of the decade. Bi-fins races using CMAS homologated fins began in 2007.

Reader's Guide

Finswimming's significance lies in its unique combination of underwater techniques and its appeal as a high-speed sport. The world record for the men's 50 m apnoea (13.70 seconds) is 50% faster than the equivalent sports swimming record. The sport offers opportunities for swimmers who may not excel in conventional swimming, as training emphasizes specificity, core stability, plyometrics, and weight training. Finswimming has been a trend sport at the World Games since 1981 and was demonstrated at the 2015 European Games. Its governing body, the CMAS Finswimming Commission, updates competition rules and maintains world records. The sport's four techniques—surface, apnoea, immersion, and bi-fins—allow for diverse competition in both pool and open water, though apnoea and immersion races are not held in open water for safety reasons.

Did You Know?

• The first world championship was held in 1976 in Hanover, Germany.
• The world record for the men's 50 m apnoea is 13.70 seconds, set by Dmitry Kokorev in 2018.
• Bi-fins were introduced in 2007 to provide a lower-cost alternative to monofins.
• The sport was demonstrated at the 2015 European Games in June 2015.

The Four Distinct Techniques

Finswimming is built around four fundamentally different ways of moving through water, each with its own equipment, rules, and competitive distances. Surface finswimming (SF) has athletes glide along the water's top using a mask, snorkel, and a single monofin, covering distances from 50 meters up to 1500 meters in pools, plus relay events. The only exception to staying at the surface is a permitted 15-meter immersion at the start or pool turns. Apnoea finswimming (AP) strips the experience down to its most primal form: a 50-meter underwater dash where the athlete holds a single breath, face submerged throughout, with no open-water variant allowed for safety. Immersion finswimming (IM) reintroduces breathing via open-circuit scuba gear, with races at 100, 200, and 400 meters in pools only—though historically these swims stretched to 1000 meters in open water. Finally, bi-fins (BF) bring a familiar crawl stroke to the surface using a pair of fins rather than one, with pool distances up to 400 meters and open-water events reaching 4 or 6 kilometers. BF was reportedly added in 2006 to give swimmers who could not afford monofins a competitive pathway.

From Rubber Fins to the World Stage

The story of finswimming begins in 1930s Europe, when the first rubber fins became widely available and transformed how people moved underwater. Italian diving pioneer Luigi Ferraro is credited with staging the very first fin-swimming race in the sea in 1951, and by 1955 he had pushed the boundaries further with a 100-kilometer ocean swim. The sport then crossed borders, reaching the Soviet Union with its inaugural national competition in 1958. The first European Championship emerged as a multi-sport event combining finswimming with other underwater activities. A major institutional milestone came in 1976, when the first world championship was held under the banner of the Confédération Mondiale des Activités Subaquatiques (CMAS), the World Underwater Federation, which still governs the sport at world and continental levels. Finswimming's visibility grew further when it was included as a trend sport at the World Games starting in 1981, and it was later demonstrated at the 2015 European Games in June of that year, signaling its continued place in the broader sports landscape.

Venues and the Architecture of Competition

Finswimming competition splits cleanly into two venue categories: swimming pools and long-distance open water. Pool events demand an Olympic-size facility—50 meters long, 21 meters wide, and 1.8 meters deep—while the international rules explicitly exclude the shorter 25-meter pools, though those remain acceptable for regional and national meets. Open-water races take place in seas, freshwater rivers, or lakes, but site selection is tightly controlled: currents and tides must be low, water quality must be certified as suitable for swimming by a local authority, and the course must be marked with buoys, patrolled by safety boats, and equipped with observation points or additional vessels so judges can monitor any turns. The distances themselves vary by technique. Surface and bi-fin events span from 50 meters to 1500 meters in pools and extend to 4 or 6 kilometers in open water. Apnoea and immersion events are confined to pools at 50 and 100-to-400 meters respectively, a restriction the rules attribute to safety and security concerns. Relay formats, including mixed-gender 4×50, 4×100, and 4×200 events, add a team dimension to the individual races.

Equipment Rules and the Regulatory Framework

The equipment regulations in finswimming reflect the sport's roots in snorkeling, breath-hold diving, and scuba, while maintaining strict safety and fairness standards. A mask is mandatory for eye protection and underwater visibility, but the international rules impose no specific design requirements beyond that. Snorkels, however, must be centre-mounted (front snorkels) and fall within defined minimum and maximum tube lengths and internal diameters. Monofins are size-limited and can be verified against a template, while bi-fins must come from brands certified by CMAS. For immersion events, breathing apparatus is restricted to open-circuit scuba using compressed atmospheric air; oxygen-enriched mixes are forbidden, cylinder pressure is capped at 200 bar, and minimum cylinder capacity is set at 0.4 litres. Regulators carry no specific requirements, though athletes often strip away unnecessary components. Even swimwear, caps, wetsuits, and the logos printed on them are subject to rulebook provisions. Notably, the international rules refer to competitors simply as "swimmers," a deliberate choice that sets the sport's identity apart from diving terminology.

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