British Olympic gold medallist Rebecca Adlington believes that legislation should be introduced stating that schools should teach children how to swim.
The 25-year-old, who won two Olympic gold medals in the pool at the 2008 Beijing Games, has been working on her own 'learn to swim' programmes since retiring from competitive sport last year.
"It baffles me when I hear statistics of how many kids can't swim because I'm thinking, 'we live on an island!'," Adlington told Sports Mole. It's the only sport that is a life skill - it's so much bigger than, 'do that so you can get an Olympic medal'.
"If I could save someone's life, that would mean 10 times more than going to the Olympics. That's probably why I'm more passionate about the young ones, just because it has got that life skill element.
"Some schools are brilliant - they really take it on and some are lucky enough to have pools near them etc, it's just not broad across the country. I think it would be nice to see it come into play as a national standard across all schools in Britain, that they have to have school swimming because it's a life skill."
Read our full interview with the ex-professional swimmer here.
Danielle Joynson
