Swimmer's Daily

  • International swimming authorities worked to protect three-time Olympic champion Sun Yang from being banned from the sport in a doping case, according to a Swiss supreme court document.

    A verdict in the case against the Chinese swimmer is expected within days from the Court of Arbitration for Sport. But a federal court document shows that swimming governing body FINA supported arguments by Sun’s lawyers to have an appeal by the World Anti-Doping Agency thrown out early last year in a pre-trial dispute over an alleged conflict of interest for the agency’s lead prosecutor, American lawyer Richard Young.

    The swimmer’s lawyers appealed to the Swiss Federal Tribunal, which dismissed their procedural objections weeks before a rare public hearing held by CAS last November.

    “In the course of the proceedings, the swimmer and FINA raised a plea of inadmissibility because of the allegedly late filing of the (WADA) appeal brief,” said the Swiss federal ruling, dated Oct. 28.

    Had Young, who previously prosecuted doping cases involving Lance Armstrong and Marion Jones and is based in Colorado, been considered ineligible for the case because of his past work for FINA, the WADA appeal could have technically missed its deadline and allowed CAS to decline jurisdiction.

    Instead, Young stayed on the WADA team for the public hearing.

    Read Fox News, ESPN, NBC Sports

  • The Detroit Public Schools Community District has placed a swimming teacher on administrative leave after the death of a student.

  • ‘Considering the developing situation with the “coronavirus”, and especially the temporary measures indicated by the authorities, the organizing committee of the Trofeo Città di Milano has decided to suspend the event scheduled for this weekend 28 February – 1 March 2020.’

    See Facebook and trofeocittadimilano.it

  • The ‘Iceman’ is the same distance as an Ironman – 3.8K in -2ºC (28.4ºF) water and then 180 km of swimming and a 42.2K marathon on the icy steppes of Antarctica. Unofficial time 40:45:33 according to DR (in Danish), not including a 27-hour snow blizzard bringing the total time up to 72:54:09. Impressive.

     

     

  • There are many ways to enter a swimming pool. Some normal, some…not so normal. How you choose to get into a swimming pool, is entirely up to you. Here are a few of our favourites!

  • Over the last year, the advocacy group Global Athlete received responses from 491 athletes spread across six continents, about 200 of whom identified themselves as Olympians or Paralympians, and the rest of whom compete at an elite level in their country or at an international level. The responses painted one of the most thorough pictures of the long-documented reality of competing at the highest levels of Olympic sports: Hardly anyone gets rich, while the majority are poor and largely beholden to the bureaucracies that fund this diverse cross-section of what are, by and large, niche sports.

    As part of the survey, athletes who said they did not consider themselves financially secure were given the chance to explain. There were 89 responses, most of which sounded similar themes:

    —“Can’t train without funds but trying to get work around training is not easy and continually told if you miss sessions you don’t get selected.”

    —”No stable job, living off casual work, and supported by my mum. My sport provides no money for me.”

    —”Paycheck depends on how I preform at a major championships once every 2-4 years. If I do not preform well in one moment I cannot financially support myself.”

    Read USA Today and read the report

  • A highlights reel from our Junior School Swimming Carnival.

  • The opening ceremony of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics is still five months away, and officials insist the Games will go on as planned, despite the global coronavirus panic. But the deadly and still-mysterious infection caused by the virus, known as COVID-19, has already begun to affect preparations for the Summer Games. Movement of athletes has been limited, qualifying events have been disrupted, and plans to train tens of thousands of volunteers have been postponed.

    In public, Japanese officials are doing everything they can to calm fears. “There are no considerations of canceling the Games, nor will the postponements of these activities have an impact on the overall Games preparation,” officials said Friday after training for Olympic volunteers in Tokyo was postponed. Training for the 80,000 volunteers has been pushed back to May in what officials called “part of efforts to prevent the spread of infection.”

    Japan has seen the fourth most cases of coronavirus, not counting the hundreds of cases aboard the Diamond Princess cruise ship. Ahead of it are Italy, South Korea, and China, where the disease originated and at least 77,150 have been infected. The numbers in Japan could increase soon though. Last week, as passengers were allowed to leave the cruise ship, critics said the disorganization could lead to a spike in cases throughout the country.

    Read The Intelligencer

     

  • A student at Detroit’s Mumford High School died Monday after he was pulled from the pool at the school, district officials said.

    “Preliminary findings establish that upon discovering the student submerged in the swimming pool, the certified swimming instructor began administering CPR,” the Detroit Public Schools Community District said in a statement.

    Paramedics rushed the student to a hospital, where the student died, according to the release.

    Read The Detroit News