• Greg’s making waves in 2020, day-in and day-out.

    https://youtu.be/NSXjHMgKxH0

  • Water testing results for Oamaru Harbour are being described as ‘very good,’ and safe for swimming.

  • My good athlete buddy (okay, I’d never met him before) Michael Phelps appeared at the Panasonic press event at CES 2020, the big tech trade show in Las Vegas this week.

    He was touting the Michael Phelps Foundation (which provides swimming lessons to children) and has agreed to be a captain for Team Panasonic, a group of celebrity athletes who are promoting Panasonic’s products and using its technology for events such as the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics.

    Phelps was heads-down on swimming and nothing but swimming while he was winning 23 Olympic medals. But since he retired for a second time in 2016, he has been pursuing other interests. (One of them was playing Call of Duty 30 hours a week). And now he’s taking an interest in technology to help athletes train and become stronger through tech sensor-monitoring and analytics. We talked briefly about this after Panasonic’s press event.

    See VentureBeat

  • The New Caney Eagle Swim and Dive team is preparing for the district meet on January 18th at the New Caney Natatorium.

  • Cat Moh goes for a dip in the icy waters of Silfra – the only place in the world where you can dive or snorkel in a crack between two tectonic plates.

  • The Balmoral Swim is a unique open water swim held within the beauty of Sydney Harbour, making it a safe event for all comers. Whether you are a seasoned veteran or a newcomer to ocean swimming, we have an event for you

  • More than 100 swimmers took to the water at the 31st annual CUC Sea Swim on Saturday afternoon. The swim saw people of all ages and backgrounds compete alongside athletes from some of Cayman’s swim clubs.

  • Italy opens with an important win over Greece

    The Italian team opened its campaign in Budapest with a fine win over Greece, the world champions were really convincing in the second half. The title-holder Serbians had some struggles in the third period against Russia but bounced back in time and won with ease at the end. Two games saw enormous battles since here the third places in the respective groups and the berth in the top 12 (and possibly in the Olympic qualification tournament) were at stake. Surprisingly, Georgia beat Rio 2016 participant France and the Netherlands came back from two goals down to win against Romania.

    Men’s preliminaries, Round 1
    Group A: Slovakia v Montenegro 4-15, Germany v Croatia 9-17
    Group B: Serbia v Russia 13-9, Romania v Netherlands 8-9
    Group C: Turkey v Hungary 5-19, Malta v Spain 7-23
    Group D: Italy v Greece 10-6, France v Georgia 7-9

    Greece’s miserable run against Italy at the Europeans didn’t come to an end in Budapest either. They have never beaten their Mediterranean rival (Italy won 10 out of 11 games, one ended in a tie) – and their hopes to halt this terrible streak lived only till halftime. Then it stood 4-4 but Italy came back strong for the third, shut out the Greeks for 6:54 minutes, scored three connecting goals and that did the damage. They won the second half 6-2, drowned the Greek offense – the number of shots (34-21) and those on target (23-12) tells the story.

    The other game in this group offered even more the tensions as Georgia pulled off a surprising win over France. It was a balanced match but the Georgians made most of their chances in the second half while the French could score only twice in this phase after netting five in the first. With 6:47 to go it stood 7-7 but Georgia scored two in a span of 44 seconds and managed to kill all French attacks in the remaining 5:24 minutes.

    Earlier, a thrilling match kicked off the men’s event, which saw the Netherlands staging a big comeback against Romania to earn a crucial win. The Dutch led at halftime 4-5 but Romania enjoyed a great spell in the third, netted four goals to go 8-6 up. But they were unable to score more in the last period (their drought lasted 9:51 minutes indeed) while the Dutch started rolling and with a 0-3 rush, they turned the game and bagged three points and set themselves to reach the top 12.

    In the other game of Group B the Serbs seemed to sit comfortable in the driving seat as they led 7-4 at halftime only to see the Russians netting three connecting goals in a span of 1:55 minutes early in the third for 7-7. However, the title-holders responded well, hit back with a double in 66 seconds and did the same after 9-8 in the fourth to secure their win at the end.

    As expected, in Group A and D the favorites enjoyed easy matches while they geared up the engines. Both Montenegro and Croatia claimed surprisingly easy wins, even though after the first period nothing promised an easy cruise either of them. The two greats were 1-2 down after eight minutes against Slovakia and Germany respectively, then the Montenegrins staged a 6-0 rush and won the second half 8-2 while the Croats won the middle two periods 12-3.

    Spain also had a slow start against Malta (4-3), then speeded up and scored 19 more goals. Hungary did the same, spent the opening quarter with calming down, and that was quite visible on the scoreboard (4-4). But once they found the necessary level in concentration, Turkey had to face the inevitable, which came in a form of a 15-1 blast, much to the joy of the home crowd.

    For more details, detailed statistics, play-by-play descriptions visit:
    http://wp2020budapest.microplustiming.com

    Press release from LEN, images courtesy of Deepbluemedia

  • A major new report shows that owing to climate change, the world’s oceans continued to get warmer last year, making them the hottest they’ve ever been, and they’re still heating up. An international team of experts has examined data compiled by a Chinese institute to work out changes in ocean temperatures over decades. Researchers say this global warming of our oceans is already having a major impact on marine life, and on the severity of storms, cyclones and hurricanes.