Author: rokur

A team behind swimmer Molly Renshaw is appealing against her exclusion from Team GB after the squad for London 2012 was announced on Sunday. At the first stage of trials in London in March, Stacey Tadd won the 200m breaststroke within the required FINA A time to book one spot, but outside the tougher requirement of world-ranked top 16 time. At the second trials in Sheffield last week, Renshaw won the race but finished 0.83 outside the qualifying standard – again the FINA A time. The petition claims Renshaw has been penalised because while they complied with British Swimming practice…

Next week, July 4-8, the Belgian city of Antwerp will host the 2012 European Junior Swimming Championships, biggest event for most of the youngsters while some will use it as preparation for the London 2012 Games. The start lists can now be found here, featuring for instance Danish London 2012 medal contender Mie Ø. Nielsen, and Sweden’s Louise Hansson positioned to win at least a couple of European Junior medals.

They call it an unofficial Danish record here on berns.dk, the 25-meter ‘plunge for distance’ that Laura Funch managed on June 26, 2012. According to Wikipedia, the current world record holder is Francis Winder (F.W.) Parrington, who on September 23, 1933 managed 86 feet 8 inches (26.42 meters).

Pál Joensen and coach Jón Bjarnason by the warm-up pool at the Budapest 2010 European Swimming Championships, after Pál won silver in the men’s 1500 freestyle. They left for Denmark and then Croatia this morning, to attend the final training camp before London 2012. Won’t come back until after the Olympics.

Casey Barrett has the best recap from the U.S. Olympic Trials Day 1 here on Cap & Goggles: “On night one of the U.S. Trials, Gregg Troy’s Gators owned Omaha. There were six Olympic spots available. Coach Troy produced four of them. A rather impressive .666 batting average. Even the devil bows in respect.” Ryan Lochte beat Michael Phelps in the 400 IM, “I have never watched a more sound defeat of Michael Phelps”. In the men’s 400 freestyle, Gator’s Peter Vanderkaay and Conor Dwyer raced to a 1-2. And in the women’s 400 IM, Gator’s Elizabeth Beisel beat Cal’s…

They seem well equipped, the kit including for instance 4 pair of shoes, gala dress with matching earrings, a wollen hat and umbrella (!), official tracksuit etc etc. Maybe not the Italian Armani, but plenty.

Late to the party here, I know, with not much more than an hour to go. The US Olympic Trials finals starting with the men’s 400 IM, see event schedule here. Tom has all relevant links here on Speed Endurance Swimming Blog, including a link to live video.

Interesting way of judging water quality, courtesy of Wired via Lifehacker. There are more scientific ways too in . “Stoneflies (Order Plecoptera), Mayflies (Order Ephemeroptera) and Caddisfly (Order Tricoptera) are as suitable swimming pals as dolphins. Trout fishermen have been using these species as an indicator of good fishing for ages. These insects need healthy water to survive, so just by finding some of them in your recreational site, chances are high that the water quality is good.” (Photo of Mayfly courtesy of Richard Bartz / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.5

OneWorldOneOcean via Laughin Squid.

Lots of Australian articles today, asking for instance “Grant Hackett is ’embarrassed’. But is he sorry?”, “Does Grant Hackett deserve sympathy and forgiveness? Or does he deserve an Oscar?”, “Remorse or damage control” and “What’s Grant Hackett not telling us?”. With tough talk on Twitter too, apparently it didn’t go well.