Upsala Simsällskap is a Swedish swimming club based in

Uppsala Uppsala ( ; ; archaically spelled ''Upsala'') is the capital of Uppsala County and the List of urban areas in Sweden by population, fourth-largest city in Sweden, after Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Malmö. It had 177,074 inhabitants in 2019. Loc ...

and founded there in 1796, making it the oldest existing sports club in Sweden. It claims to be the oldest swimming club in the world. Since 1991, Fyrishov is the home pool of Upsala SS.

History

The society was founded by the mathematician and astronomer Jöns Svanberg (1771–1851) together with some colleagues at the university as a way to remedy the general lack of swimming skills. The same year the society was founded, Svanberg arranged a mock "graduation ceremony" (''promotion''), modelled after the academic ceremony, where he and some of his colleagues awarded themselves the master's degree (''magister'') and their pupils the degree of bachelor (''kandidat'') in swimming. The ''simpromotion'' and these "degrees" were taken over by other Swedish swimming clubs and are still used in Swedish swimming schools. After Svanberg had temporarily left Uppsala for

Stockholm Stockholm (; ) is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, most populous city of Sweden, as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in the Nordic countries. Approximately ...

, Gabriel Marklin, otherwise remembered as an eccentric scientific collector, briefly took care of the swimming school, to be succeeded for a few years by Carl Gustaf Grahl, the first professional swimming instructor in Sweden. By that time, Svanberg had returned to Uppsala as professor of mathematics. In the middle of the 19th century, a bath house was built and later a

springboard A springboard or diving board is used for diving and is a board that is itself a spring, i.e. a linear flex-spring, of the cantilever type. Springboards are commonly fixed by a hinge at one end (so they can be flipped up when not in use), and ...

for

diving Diving most often refers to: * Diving (sport), the sport of jumping into deep water * Underwater diving, human activity underwater for recreational or occupational purposes Diving or Dive may also refer to: Sports * Dive (American football), ...

. The Isander dive (or half gainer), one of the most common dives in springboard diving, was named after Lars Fredrik Isander (1828–1893), active in the Society and later lecturer at the Gymnasium in Linköping, and the Mollberg dive (full gainer) was named after Anders Fredrik Mollberg, swimming instructor for the society (1878–1879), who supposedly invented it by accident when he was actually intending to do an Isander dive. It actually appears to be considerably older and is described already in ''Underrättelser i simkonsten'', a Swedish instruction book in swimming from 1839. Anecdotes describe Mollberg's extraordinary gymnastic ability and how he once made two consecutive "Mollberg" dives while slightly tipsy, leaving spectators wondering how he came out of the water alive. Upsala S had their first Olympic diver at the

1906 Summer Olympics The 1906 Intercalated Games or 1906 Olympic Games (), held from 22 April 1906 to 2 May 1906, was an international multi-sport event that was celebrated in Athens, Kingdom of Greece. They were at the time considered to be Olympic Games and were re ...

, when

Otto Hagborg Otto Josias Engelbrekt Hagborg (31 August 1854, Gothenburg - 5 January 1927, London) was a Swedish genre painter and diver. His brother was the painter, August Hagborg.

participated. In 1910, Upsala Simsällskap entered competitive swimming and is one of the most successful swimming clubs in Sweden. Upsala S had their first Olympic swimmer at the

1960 Summer Olympics The 1960 Summer Olympics (), officially known as the Games of the XVII Olympiad () and commonly known as Rome 1960 (), were an international multi-sport event held from 25 August to 11 September 1960 in Rome, Italy. Rome had previously been awar ...

, when Inger Thorngren participated.

Athletes

Swimmers

''Swimmers that have participated in the Summer Olympics while representing Upsala SS:'' Anders Bellbring 1970

* Anders Bellbring * Leif Ericsson * Jennie Johansson * Per-Alvar Magnusson * Rikard Milton * Rolf Pettersson * Inger Thorngren * Christoffer Wikström

Divers

''Divers that have participated in the Summer Olympics while representing Upsala SS:'' * Eskil Brodd

References

Nordisk Familjebok
s.v "Simsällskap"

("Uppsala Swimming Society. A brief history", in Swedish)
About Anders Fredrik Mollberg
Google cache from the website of the Swedish Sports Confederation ( Riksidrottsförbundet) (in Swedish) *''

Nationalencyklopedin (; "The National Encyclopedia" in English), abbreviated NE, is a comprehensive contemporary Swedish-language encyclopedia with several hundred thousand articles. It is available both online and via a printed version. History The project was ...

'', s.v. "Isanderska hoppet", "Mollbergska hoppet", "Upsala Simsällskap" (in Swedish).

External links

Upsala Simsällskap
main page {{DEFAULTSORT:Upsala Simsallskap Upsala SS 1796 establishments in Sweden Upsala SS Upsala SS Clubs and societies in Sweden 18th-century establishments in Uppsala County