Upon reaching the water the plunger glides face downward for a period of 60 seconds without imparting any propulsion to the body from the arms and legs."

To determine the total distance traveled, the measurement was taken from the farthest part of the body from the start, "opposite a point at right angles to the base line.

[4] In later years, the plunge was subject to criticism as "not an athletic event at all," but instead a competition favoring "mere mountains of fat who fall in the water more or less successfully and depend upon inertia to get their points for them.

"[6] Similarly, an 1893 English report on the sport noted that spectators were not enamored of it, as the diver "moves after thirty or forty feet at a pace somewhat akin to a snail, and to the uninitiated the contests appear absolute wastes of time.

William Dickey of the USA won the gold medal with a distance of 62 feet 6 inches,[15][16] which remains the Olympic record.

Dickey's Olympic victory was far short of the world record at the time, which for a 60-second limit competition had been set at 79 feet 3 inches by W. Taylor of Bootle, England in September 1902.

In June 2012, Danish female swimmer Laura Funch successfully plunged the full length of a 25-meter (82-foot) pool in approximately 101 seconds.

[35] An 1893 English book on swimming also notes the existence of a variation of plunging where participants dive feet first, which it reports to already be rarely practiced.

rule change planned to make plungers dive in groups, causing concern that collisions would inevitably occur among participants.