The World Swimming Time Zone is now GMT+8 hours

All the best swimmers in the world are now flocking along the China Standard Time zone, waking up at approximately 7 AM in Shanghai, midnight in London, 7 PM the day before in New York and 4 PM the day before in San Francisco. The Brits are in Osaka, the Americans at the Gold Coast in Australia, the Australians, Swedes and South Africans in Singapore, the Brazilians in Macau, the Dutch in China, and the Japanese in Japan.

Michael Phelps and the others had to wait for 4 hours on the plane in Chicago because of missing pilots, Cullen Jones is searching for a lost Tuesday, Roland Schoeman celebrated his Stilnox sleeping pills so hard yesterday that he almost missed afternoon practice, and Femke Heemskerk had difficulties using Twitter and Facebook in China, later solved by using something called mediafunnel (see MediaFunnel). Australia’s James Magnusson is sadly struck down with pneumonia, forcing him to withdraw from the Shanghai 2011.