Sex Differences in Swimming Disciplines—Can Women Outperform Men in Swimming? In recent years, the interest of female dominance has increased by long-distance swimming, publishing several newspaper articles in which the performance and dominance of women was speculated - especially when the ultra-distance swimming in open water. The aim of this overview is to check the scientific literature in relation to the difference between the sexes for all swimming styles (dolphin, back swimming, breast swimming, freestyle and layer swimming), different distances (sprint to ultra). Extreme conditions (cold water), different age and swim integrated in multi-port disciplines such as triathlon, in different age groups and the course of calendar years were also taken into account. The influence of different physiological, psychological, anthropomometric and biomechanical aspects for the possible explanation of female dominance was also discussed. The databases Scopus and PubMed were searched until April 2020.Mainly long-range floats were examined in the open waters and pool swimmer of different ages and performance levels. For long-distance swimmers in the open waters of the ‘Triple Crown of Open Water Swimming’ with the ‘Catalina Channel Swim’, the ‘English Channel Swim’ and the ‘Manhattan Island Marathon Swim’, women were about 0.06 km / h faster than men. In master swimming (age groups from 25 to 29 to 90 to 94 years), which participated in the FINA World Cup in Pool Swimming in Freestil, Back, Dolphin, Chest, Layers and 3000-M Open, showed that female master swimmers are ableare to achieve similar achievements like men in the oldest age groups (older than 75-80 years). At boys and girls aged 5 to 18 years - and the 100 best freestyle swimming services of the US from 50 m to 1500 meters - the five fastest girls until the age of “were faster than the five fastest boys.After the age of 10 and until the age of 17, however, boys were increasingly faster than girls. Therefore, women tended to reduce the existing gender differences in certain age groups (younger than 10 years and older than 75-80 years) when swimming in the pool or even exceeding long-haul swimming in open water (distances of “30 km), in particularUnder extreme weather conditions (water colder than \ ~ 20 ° C).
Two main variables can explain why women can swim rapidly during swimming in open water than men: the long distance of about 30 km, and the water colder than \ ~ 20 ° C.Future studies could examine more detailed the very boys (<10 years) and very old (> 75-80 years) age groups during swimming. The whole overview can be found under http://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/10/3651