Community participation in endurance events, including long-distance swimming races, has grown. To assess the extent to which participants in endurance swims represent all socioeconomic levels of the community, data were collected from the 748 entrants in two major Australian swimming events. The suburbs in which the entrants lived (as listed on the entry forms) were categorised into five groupings by average incomes as reported in the 1986 Australian Census. Analysis showed that, similar to previous findings with runners, competitors from the upper socioeconomic strata were overly represented in the swimming events. Least representation came from the lowest socioeconomic grouping.
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