When Jamison Handy was 20, he helped develop the American crawl. Reading a Sydney newspaper's fuzzy description of the Australian crawl, with which Down Under swimmers were then smashing records, young Handy tried to imitate the stroke he had never seen. The Australian crawl was such a sensational step forward that some kind of American imitation was inevitable; other Americans besides Jam Handy tried their own adaptations. The U.S. style that finally emerged combined the double over-arm stroke with a loose-leg kick from the hips instead of the knees. Using it, Handy won three national free-style championships.
Last week, at 62, Jam...
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