The Future of Swimming

To Start off let me say that I love to swim and I used to swim with my school back home. When I thought of topics to write on the subject of the future of swimming I thought about inventions that would benefit the future of competitive swimming. At first, I thought I would talk about the development of the full body suit that was a big controversial subject a couple years ago, but I did not like that topic, I believed it to be cheating in so many ways. Then I thought I would possibly do the fact of the new solar powered heating pools that they are coming out with but that is kind of now not the future. Then I ran across an article about an invention for blind people to be able to stay in their own lanes and depend only on themselves, not someone else telling them when to. Staying in their own lanes, and timing a turn, has always been a huge problem for the blind. One wrong move for them and it could cause them to completely get thrown off course and cause them to lose focus of the finish line. The way of this old and problematic solution of notifying the swimmer was a person at the end of the lane would have a pole with a tennis ball attached to a string. This “guider” would tap the swimmer on the head or the body when they reached the end of the lane. This worked fine but there are many problems to this event. First of all there was always a shortage of the people that were willing to do this tedious job. Second of all there was never enough funding to pay these people to do this as a full time job. So when Annie Swacki discovered a new invention and solved this problematic situation, many people were excited about it. After many failed attempts on creating an electronic prototype, Annie finally came up with a working product. This product consisted of a series of flexible plastic rods with balls on one end and brackets on the other that attach to a standard lane line. The lines that attach to the body of the swimmer can be placed were ever fits best and is out of the way of the techniques of swimming. This invention keeps the swimmer in their own lane and keeps them from veering off into the competitor’s lane, solving several problems alone. This invention also helps to notify the swimmer where the end of the wall is, and allows them to do a proper turn. For the blind this invention is like having eyes and a teacher guiding them along the race and gives them the confidence they need to win their match. All in all, I see this product being the future of swimming for blind swimmers in the near future. This product has already been accepted by the Kiefer Company and promised to be mass produced so any blind swimmer may purchase one. This will definitely be a new revolution for all blind swimmers and will allow more blind people to enjoy the hobby or profession they seek the most.