Author: rokur

7-year-old Gabriel Marsh is an active swimmer into his third season as a Gunthersville Aquacat, easily completing a full 25-meters in the video below despite only having only one arm and no legs. He is a finalist for America Inspired Outstanding Youth, a contest celebrating extraordinary youngsters setting an example for all generations. Go vote for him or one of the other outstanding youths, now! Via Bob’s Blitz

A 90-year-old former professional swimmer and diver fulfilled a dream of her youth when she became an honorary lifeguard at the ED Isakson-Alpharetta Family YMCA on Friday 13th. She was given her own whistle, lifeguard certificate and lifeguard rescue float before taken poolside. Read Alpharetta-MiltonPatch

A man in his 50s or 60s has died during the Epic swimming race on Lake Taupo in New Zealand today, that also doubled as the 2012 New Zealand Open Water Championships. A water safety team saw the swimming in difficulty during the 2.5km Epic Swim recreation race, responded immediately but was unable to resuscitate the swimmer. Conditions on the lake were described as moderately choppy. Read skynews.com.au. (Photo of Lake Taupo courtesy of Chris Counsell, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Denis Lotarev is holding an exhibition St. Petersburg’s “Art Space” gallery until January 24, 2012, of his works created underwater in the Red and Black seas. Read for instance wtvy.com My personal comment: If you have a crazy project to present, and want to make it look perfectly sane, it sure helps to be able to speak Russian! :-D

Hey, that is the name of the video :-) Personally, I could never live there. Too few cod, and if possible even less haddock! Sigh.

Shot of myself through a mirror somewhere in the Holiday Inn Rome-Aurelia, during the Roma 2009 World Aquatics Championships. Those sponsored sun hats looked silly but were very practical in the blazing Italian sun, I still keep mine as a (in Faroe Islands totally useless) memento. It reminds me of this great Roma 2009 promo produced by Rúni Friis Kjær from our national TV, featuring me and my good journalistic friend Jón Brian Hvidtfeldt (who also was with us when Pál won three gold medals at the Belgrade 2008 European Juniors). This is how all our Faroese swimming video material…

Rope skipping at simulated altitude 4650 meters, that’s 15,256 feet. Excuse my French, but that other guy looks totally wasted. [blackbirdpie url=”https://twitter.com/#!/ItsStephRice/status/157977748709707776″] See video here on yfrog

Faroese freelancer Ólavur Wolles producing a segment ‘on-the-fly’ for our national TV channel, working the camera, lights and sound while interviewing two youngsters simultaneously. Here’s the result – I feature also, sorry about that ! :-) (Thanks Bartal for your crazy angles … Everytime I try to be a bit serious, my dear kid brother twists it somehow!)

Five-time Olympic champion Ian Thorpe finished fifth in the 200-meter freestyle at the Victorian state championships today, his best result since coming out of retirement last year. “This is the best I can swim at this stage, there’s a lot I have to improve upon now,” says Thorpe, “technique-wise I wasn’t very good tonight, I was a little bit rushed.”. Some of us are maybe a bit underwhelmed by a fifth place in an Australian state championships, but the media is alight. Via ESPN

Sigh, number one is Dreams Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic. Well at least my dreams are for free ! :-) See full list here on boston.com