Alick Wickham

Who is Alick Wickham?

Alick Fredrick Wickham was a Solomon Islands-born swimmer and diver credited with introducing the swimming technique that became known as the Australian crawl, the direct forerunner of modern competitive freestyle. He was born on 1 June 1886 near Roviana Lagoon in the Western Solomons to an English trader father and a Solomon Islander mother, and moved to Sydney, Australia, as a child, where he swam using a fast overarm stroke already common among swimmers across the Pacific Islands. Around the turn of the century, watching the young Wickham race through the water at the Bronte Beach sea baths, Australian swimming coach George Farmer reportedly exclaimed that the boy was "crawling" through the water, and the name stuck. Wickham went on to become a champion sprint swimmer and high diver in Australia and England, and the stroke he brought from the Solomon Islands was refined by other Australian swimmers into the technique that dominates freestyle racing today. He was later inducted into both the International Swimming Hall of Fame and the Sport Australia Hall of Fame. He died in Papua New Guinea on 10 August 1967.

Sources: Alick Wickham — Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org) · Alick Wickham — International Swimming Hall of Fame honoree page (ishof.org) · Alick Wickham — Sport Australia Hall of Fame member page (sahof.org.au)