FINIS

FINIS, Inc. is an American manufacturer of swim training and pool equipment, founded in 1993 in Northern California by John Mix and Pablo Morales, the 1992 Olympic champion in the 100 metre butterfly, and now based in Livermore, California.¹² The company says the name is the Latin word for “the end” or “grand finale”, chosen because it contains the word “fin”, its first product, and evokes the finish of a race.³ Unlike the timing-system vendors covered elsewhere in this wiki, FINIS makes training tools and unpowered pool equipment rather than electronics for officiating; its product documented in the equipment reference is the Backstroke Start Wedge.

History¶

John Mix first encountered a monofin during a semester abroad in Austria in 1988 and returned to the United States convinced of its value as a training tool for competitive swimmers.¹³ After Morales, a high-school friend and teammate, won gold in the 100 metre butterfly at the 1992 Barcelona Games, the two founded FINIS Incorporated in 1993 under the direction of John’s oldest brother, Jerry Mix Jr., and built the first FINIS monofin, a rubber foot pocket mounted on a single fiberglass blade, in a garage.¹⁴

The Swimmer’s Snorkel followed in 1995, a center-mount snorkel designed for the competitive swim market; FINIS credits early validation of the design to University of California-Berkeley coach Nort Thornton.¹ The company states that its product philosophy has stayed technique-first: co-founder John Mix has said the company is “only going to build a product if it’s going to have a specific purpose of improving technique”.⁵ FINIS opened its first international office in 2010 to serve Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa.¹

Products¶

FINIS designs training equipment for competitive and fitness swimming. Dated milestones from the company’s own history include the monofin (1993), the Swimmer’s Snorkel (1995), the Tech Toc and Hydro Hip rotation trainers (1996), the Tempo Trainer pacing device (2001), the Agility paddle (2012, which FINIS describes as the first strapless paddle on the market), the Axis buoy and Duo underwater audio player (2015), the Smart Goggle (2021), and the Manta paddle (2022).¹ Its underwater audio products, including the earlier SwiMP3 and Neptune, transmit sound through bone conduction.³

On the pool-equipment side, FINIS sells the Backstroke Start Wedge, a manual backstroke start device developed in collaboration with Vince Harris of WEDG Swim Start Systems of County Cork, Ireland.⁶ That article covers the device in full; the backstroke start devices overview covers the equipment class and its rules.

In competition¶

FINIS describes the Backstroke Start Wedge as compliant with the World Aquatics (FINA) facilities rules and usable in both training and competition.⁶ More broadly, the company’s training products are marketed for practice rather than officiating; Openwaterpedia states that FINIS products are used by US and international Olympic teams, triathletes, and fitness swimmers.³

See also¶

• Vendors: other manufacturers referenced in Libre Aquatics Wiki
• Equipment: the equipment reference
• Backstroke start devices: the equipment class FINIS’s wedge belongs to
• Sources & citations: how Libre Aquatics Wiki references vendors and manuals

References¶

Footnotes¶

1. FINIS, Our Story. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶

2. FINIS, Independent Sales Representative job specification (PDF) (Livermore, California address). ↩

3. Openwaterpedia, FINIS. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

4. Captyn, The Origin of FINIS and Innovating in Aquatics for 30 years. ↩

5. Swimming World, From Monofins to Modern Training, FINIS’ 30-Year Playbook for Better Technique (branded interview with co-founder John Mix). ↩

6. FINIS, Backstroke Start Wedge. ↩ ↩²