Youngest son Richmond Theophilus was the first to use the crawl in a competition, winning 100 yards State championship in 1899 and in England, in 1902, he was the first to swim 100 yards in under a minute.

Unlike other events using freestyle, swimmers could not use butterfly, backstroke, or breaststroke for the freestyle leg; most swimmers use the front crawl in freestyle events.

This swimming event used freestyle as a relay, with swimmers typically using the front crawl.

Building on these basics, an MCIWS uses the "crawl, walk, run" principle by encouraging a student to perform increasingly challenging water survival skills.

Freestyle, (with the limitation that freestyle means any style other than backstroke, breaststroke or butterfly - most swimmers use the front crawl)

Nearly all swimmers use the front crawl or a variant of that stroke.

At competitive levels, essentially all freestyle swimmers use the front crawl.

As skills increase, mix strokes, using the crawl, backstroke and breaststroke.

Most swimmers use the front crawl.