Cameron Van Der Burgh Breaks World Record 100m Breaststroke, London 2012 Olympics

South Africa s Cameron Van Der Burgh sets a new world record of as he wins the gold medal in the men s 100m breaststroke event at the London 2012 Olympic Games (29 July). Australia s Christian Spenger and the USA s Brendan Hansen won the silver and bronze medals at the event held in the aquatics centre. Subscribe to the Olympics here hit the bell Swimming has featured on the programme of all editions of the Games since 1896. The very first Olympic events were freestyle (crawl) or breaststroke. Backstroke was added in 1904. In the 1940s, breaststrokers discovered that they could go faster by bringing both arms forward over their heads. This practice was immediately forbidden in breaststroke, but gave birth to butterfly, whose first official appearance was at the 1956 Games in Melbourne. This style is now one of the four strokes used in competition. Women s swimming became Olympic in 1912 at the Stockholm Game