{"id":341476,"date":"2023-01-20T05:11:21","date_gmt":"2023-01-20T12:11:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/?p=341476"},"modified":"2023-01-21T09:00:12","modified_gmt":"2023-01-21T16:00:12","slug":"how-the-underwater-dolphin-kick-evolved-and-revolutionized-the-sport","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/how-the-underwater-dolphin-kick-evolved-and-revolutionized-the-sport\/","title":{"rendered":"How the Underwater Dolphin Kick Evolved Over Time and Revolutionized the Sport"},"content":{"rendered":"

How the Underwater Dolphin Kick Evolved and Revolutionized the Sport<\/strong><\/p>\n

By J.P. Mortenson (Archive)<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Underwater dolphin kicking transformed the sport of swimming. These days, swimmers at the NCAA and international level routinely push their kicks to the 15-meter mark. However, this was not always the case.<\/span><\/p>\n

For a long time, dolphin kick was predominantly only used in butterfly. The first swimmer to utilize underwater dolphin kicks off of their turns was American Jesse Vassallo<\/strong>, who began to do two or three underwater dolphin kicks off of his starts and turns in the 1970s. According to Vassallo, the purpose of these dolphin kicks was “to avoid waves from bigger swimmers” and to help stabilize his body before starting his arm strokes. However, his utilization of the underwater dolphin was relatively limited, as kicks never extended past the first few meters. Although it was effective, the impact that it had on swimming was minor.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Jesse-Vassallo-1981\"

Vassallo, one of the pioneers of the underwater dolphin kick. Photo Courtesy: Chris Georges<\/p><\/div>\n

In the 1980s, Japanese backstroker\u00a0Daichi Suzuki<\/strong>\u00a0began to explore Vassallo\u2019s idea of utilizing underwater dolphin kicks in his races. However, he pushed for underwater dolphin kick for far longer distances. By the 1984 Olympics, Suzuki was going roughly 25m of underwater dolphin kick off of his start in the 100m backstroke. Despite this feat, Suzuki was unable to qualify for the backstroke finals so that it would be a few more years more years before the rest of the swimming world would catch on.<\/p>\n

\"daichi-suzuki\"

Photo Courtesy: Swimming World Archive<\/p><\/div>\n

Meanwhile, in 1987, Stanford swimmers Jay Mortenson<\/strong> and Sean Murphy<\/strong> got the idea to use underwater dolphin kicks for the majority of their races. <\/span><\/p>\n

According to Mortenson, he and Murphy got their inspiration when they “heard about a female backstroker in the SEC (Dawn Hewitt) who had a long history of shoulder injuries. Because of this, she extended her underwater dolphin kick to take fewer strokes. The fact that she was still able to compete at an elite <\/span>level by using her underwater dolphin kick gave us the idea to try it. We started playing around with the underwater dolphin kick in practice in January of 1987, and we realized that it was significantly faster than swimming backstroke on the surface.\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In April of that year, they became the first swimmers to implement extended underwater dolphin kicking in their races at the NCAA level. Because there was no 15-meter mark restricting the amount of underwater dolphin kick that they could do at that time, they were able to swim more of their race underwater than swimmers can now. Regarding his 100 backstroke races, Mortenson says, “On the first lap I took one stroke, the second and third laps I took three strokes, and on the final lap, I was gassed, so I only made it halfway underwater before breaking out.”<\/span>
\n<\/span>
\n<\/span>The results of the Stanford swimmers\u2019 experiment were extremely successful. While leading off Stanford\u2019s 400 medley relay, Mortenson broke the American Record and became the first man to break 48 seconds in the 100 backstroke. In the individual event, Mortenson finished second, and Murphy finished third.<\/span><\/p>\n

Another one of the first swimmers to turn heads with the underwater dolphin kick was American David Berkoff<\/strong>. Berkoff was both the most iconic and the most effective underwater dolphin kicker from the late 1980s, as he several world records in the 100 backstroke and routinely kicked underwater for 35 meters off the start of the race. His starts were so effective that announcers coined them as the \u201cBerkoff Blastoff<\/a>,” a name that would be used to reference underwater dolphin kicks for decades.<\/span><\/p>\n

The idea to push underwaters caught on like wildfire in the swimming community. At the 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul, five out of the eight swimmers in the men’s 100m backstroke final dolphin kicked underwater for 20 meters or more off of their starts in a race that saw Suzuki out-touch Berkoff. <\/span><\/p>\n