Swimmer's Daily

  • New Year Swim at Lee Dam in West Yorkshire, just above Todmorden

  • The Princess Royale Hotel in Ocean City, MD was once again the site for the annual Penguin Swim. which raises money for Atlantic General Hospital.

  • Vikings season six airs Wednesdays on History US and Amazon Prime Video on Thursdays. In the latest episode of Vikings season six, titled The Key, Gunnhild (played by Ragga Ragnars) joined Lagertha’s (Katheryn Winnick) fight against the bandits attacking Lagertha’s village. While Lagertha has been a key character in the show since its inception in 2013, Gunnild is relatively new to the Viking world.

    See Express

    https://youtu.be/KeGWiKui22M

    https://youtu.be/PVXFloW9vS0

  • Thousands of Dutch revelers braved cold water and chilling winds on Tuesday to take a New Year’s Day plunge in the North Sea.

  • When violence erupted during the Syrian Civil War, Sarah and her family, like so many decided to flee to Europe. However, Sarah’s crossing to Europe made international headlines, when the overcrowded boat they were travelling on to Greece started sinking. As competitive swimmers, Sarah, her sister and two men, managed to save the 18 people onboard by swimming the boat to shore. A year later, Sarah returned to Lesbos as the first female Syrian volunteer to work with the Emergency Response Center International as a search and rescue swimmer and translator. During this interview with Kajal Odedra, the UK Director of Change.Org, Sarah speaks in depth about the experiences of returning to Lesbos to volunteer and what happened when she was then arrested after completing humanitarian work.

  • A coroner has said an east London council should do more to stop swimmers bathing illegally in a disused dock after a young artist drowned.

    Illustration student Jonathan Adebanjo, 23, died while swimming with friends in Shadwell Basin on July 23 last year during a record heatwave.

    It took police 16 hours to recover his body from the dock, which has become a popular bathing spot in hot summers.

    Read Evening Standard

  • Andrew Gemmell got into swimming as a kid because it was fun. From there, he realized his passion and talent for the sport, and guided by his father who doubled as his coach, went on to earn a place with one of the most successful teams to ever compete for Team USA.

    Over the course of his long career in elite swimming, during which he competed at the 2012 Olympic Games in London, Andrew held himself accountable for doing the right thing, from eating healthy and setting aside time for recovery, to filing Whereabouts and checking the prohibited status of medications. Now retired, Andrew is channeling his commitment to clean sport to advocate for a level playing field and help the next generation of swimmers compete the right way in his role as an Anti-Doping Education Athlete Presenter with USADA.

    https://youtu.be/p7aR3pV5VCM

  • Would you swim in these conditions?!
    Air temp: 7C. Water: 7C. Wind: Gusting 45mph. Fun: off the scale!
    2nd January 2020, Reef Beach, Isle of Lewis, Outer Hebrides, Scotland.
    Part of Lewis Pugh’s training camp ahead of his Antarctica 2020 swim.
    Lewis is joined by training partner Max Holloway, Jonathan Aitken and Calum Maclean. A hard 1k swim followed by a return 1k run on the beach.

    Find out about Lewis’s Antartica2020 swim: https://lewispughfoundation.org/east-…

  • A swim coach who previously was disciplined for an arrangement allowing his private swim club to rent the pool at Whitney Young High School “for little to no cost,” also pocketed nearly $30,000 from improper side deals to lease the pool to three other outside groups, according to a new watchdog report.

    From April 2013 through September 2016, Whitney Young swim coach Andy Parro collected at least $29,604 from three outside groups through “off-the books agreements” and kept the money for himself, even though he had no authority to rent out pool time at all, according to the latest annual report from Chicago Public Schools Inspector General Nicholas Schuler. The report does not name the school or Parro, but the CBS 2 Investigators previously have reported on allegations against Parro involving improper use of the Whitney Young pool.

    In 2016, Parro and his club were suspended from doing business with the district, after Schuler’s office found he had made an arrangement with the principal and assistant principal to rent the pool for his private club for a mere $1.20 per hour between August 2014 and September 2016.  The inspector general estimated the school gave up $96,301.70 to $582,504.20 in possible rent due to the improper arrangement.

    In the wake of Schuler’s report on that arrangement, the inspector general’s office received new complaints that Parro had been improperly subletting his swim club’s lease, and that he was still engaging in business with the school even after the Chicago Board of Education had moved to bar him from doing so.

    See CBS Chicago, Chicago Tribune, Houston Chronicle