Swimmer's Daily

  • About 30 teens and young adults braved the cold ocean waters at the beach near the San Clemente Pier on Sunday morning, Feb. 23, as they competed for spots with the city’s Marine Safety Division lifeguards.

  • The Court of Arbitration for Sport has delivered its verdict on controversial swimmer Sun Yang today after a prolonged doping battle that has taken place inside and outside the courtroom. Sun, who has long received warm support from the Chinese public, has been hit with an 8-year ban.

    The controversy began after three officials visited Sun’s home in China in 2018 to conduct an out-of-competition doping test. Yang allegedly accused the officials of not having paperwork to prove their identities and declined to cooperate. Matters escalated quickly and allegedly culminated in an altercation in which Yang’s mother ordered a member of Sun’s security team to smash the vials containing his blood samples with a hammer.

    FINA, the international swimming federation, did not find the swimmer guilty of any wrongdoing. However, WADA, the World Anti-Doping Agency, appealed the ruling and brought it to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

    In a rare move, Yang and his lawyers asked that the trial be made public in order “to be fully transparent and to clear his name.”

    Yang, the first ever Chinese man to win a gold medal for swimming in the Olympics, is one of China’s most beloved athletes. But since he tested positive for trimetazidine in 2014 and was subsequently banned for three months, his career has been under significant scrutiny. The New York Times called him “international swimming’s favorite villain” in a recent report of the case.

    Read Radii, The Washington Post, ABC News, The New York Times, South China Morning Post, SwimmingWorld Magazine and the CAS Media Release

    https://youtu.be/DJ4Nddwmurg

     

  • The Court of Arbitration of Sport (CAS) will announce on Friday whether multiple Chinese swimming champion Sun Yang has been found guilty of a doping offence, it said in a statement on Thursday.

    CAS has to decide whether to accept an appeal from the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) against a decision by world swimming’s ruling body FINA to clear Sun of wrongdoing for his conduct during an out-of-competition test in September 2018.

    A public hearing in November heard that Sun questioned the credentials of the testers before members of his entourage smashed the vials containing his blood samples with a hammer.

    Sun said the testers failed to show their identity and behaved in an unprofessional manner.

    CAS said the decision would be announced at 0900 GMT.

    Read Reuters

  • Former two-time world 100m freestyle champion Filippo Magnini of Italy had his four-year doping ban overturned by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) on Thursday.

    The 38-year-old had been banned in November 2018 by Italy’s anti-doping agency (Nado), after which he retired from the sport.

    But Lausanne-based CAS found that “there was insufficient evidence to conclude that Filippo Magnini had violated the world anti-doping code”.

    Read MSN

  • Ms. Foo Xu Hui had to give up dance and gymnastics after a sudden fall in junior college left her in a wheelchair. She adapted to her new life and picked up swimming along the way.

  • Today we’re going to give away the $200 Form Swim Goggles but first let’s do a full review of these goggles and their heads up display system where you can see live swimming metrics like pace while you’re swimming. Link to where you can buy them below:

    Buy them here: https://amzn.to/35oNOj1
    Form Swim Goggle’s Website:     https://www.formswim.com/

  • The Finns are eccentric in the best way. In Northern Europe, the winters get pretty chilly – and Northern Finland is up there with the coldest places on the continent. Doesn’t bother the Finns! Swimming in icy water is a widely practiced tradition, and every year locals compete in an extreme swimming race. For many here, a freezing cold dip is part of everyday life. Naturally, Euromaxx reporter Max Merrill went there to find out for himself how swimming in sub-zero temperatures feels. His challenge: to survive a 25-meter dash in a lake that’s just 1°c – and not come in last!

  • On Friday 28 February 2020, Capetonian marathon swimmer, musician and mother-of-three Carina Bruwer will attempt to swim approximately 20km to cross Nelson Mandela Bay in Port Elizabeth, in support of Muzukidz, an organisation that offers underprivileged children the opportunity to learn the violin.

    If successful, Carina will be the first woman and the second person to complete the gruelling crossing from Pollock Beach in Summerstrand (PE) to Bluewater Bay on the Coega side of the bay.  She will enter the water at approximately 08:00 on Friday, where a group of children from the Muzukidz project are expected to see her off.  The exact finish point will be determined on the day, depending on visibility and/or shark activity in the harbour vicinity.

    “Crossing Nelson Mandela Bay has been on my bucket list for longer than I can remember” says Carina, an  open water swimming veteran whose resume includes numerous records and iconic crossings such as the English Channel, False Bay, the Gibraltar Straits, and dozens more.  “I just never quite got round to it but now that Muzukidz, the NPO that I support with all my heart and efforts, opened a branch in Port Elizabeth, the time has certainly come!”.

    Over the past 20 years, three male swimmers have crossed the bay. PE swimmer / adventurer Kyle Main did the 20km crossing from Hobie beach to Coega on two occasions (first of which was in 2000), while Chris Malan completed a 15km crossing across the bay in 2003 at the age of 15, a route which internationally renowned Lewis Pugh also followed in 2006.

    Local sports company Adventure Swims ZA will oversee the crossing and provide support in the form of two boats (one from Raggy Charters and one private vessel) and a team consisting of pilots, a power / rescue swimmer and a medic. The Port Authority, NSRI, KB Surf lifesaving and Guardmed will also be on standby.  The boats will be equipped with shark shields, while there will also be a dedicated shark spotter on each boat. Carina’s swim is expected to take anything between 5 and 7 hours, depending on the conditions. The main challenges, apart from the distance, are unpredictable currents, wind, rough water, shipping lane activity and ocean life.

    Carina, an International Marathon Swimming’s Hall of Fame nominee who was also ranked as one of the World Open Water Swimming Association’s top 50 most “daring, courageous and audacious” open water swimmers in the world in 2015 and 2018, has been training 30km per week and says she feels ready for the distance.   “I am feeling fit and am looking forward to spending the time in the ocean; it is my happy place and the little aches and pains that creep in after a few hours of swimming are quickly forgotten when I am swimming for a cause”, says the 40 year-old mother of three.  “When I swim in the open water and I get into my ‘zone’, I often experience a beautiful state of clarity, where the world makes sense to me and I feel enormously optimistic and filled with hope.  I realise that I am hugely fortunate to be able to experience moments like this while so many people in this world are limited by their circumstances – certainly most people in South Africa – so Swim For Hope is all about sharing this optimism and spreading the feeling of hope that I experience in the open water”, says Carina.

    Carina is also a well-known musician who performs with the internationally renowned instrumental group Sterling EQ, She founded Swim For Hope in 2014 as a fundraising platform through which open water swimmers can dedicate a solo or group swim to a worthy South African cause.  Since its inception, Swim For Hope has raised over R600,000 for different charities, in addition to media coverage to the value of more than R1 million. The project’s current beneficiary is MUZUKIDZ which, after 5 years working exclusively in Cape Town, has now also opened a branch in Port Elizabeth.  Operating from Settlers Park Primary in Walmer, Muzukidz has one teacher in PE, who has taken 50 young children from townships in and around PE under her wing. Children are taught at no cost to the families and Muzukidz relies solely on external funding to cover costs for teachers, instruments and teaching material. The organisation hopes to be able to appoint a second teacher and reach 150 children by mid-2020.

    “Muzukidz is the perfect beneficiary, as I truly believe in empowering South Africans and growing South Africa through education, and being more of a performer than a teacher myself, I was delighted to discover this amazing organisation as it represented everything I was hoping to support as a musician. I believe that giving a child the opportunity to learn a musical instrument goes way beyond the ability to make music or the possibility of being a musician one day. Music stimulates the brain in a very special way; in fact studies have shown that children who do 14 months of musical training displayed more powerful structural and functional brain changes. Imagine what this can do for a young child who comes from a poor background and who has limited opportunities and a limited support structure. I am convinced that organisations like Muzukidz are helping to mould our future leaders, inventors and change makers.”

    Members of the public, as well as corporates are invited to follow the swim online, and are encouraged to sponsor and donate.

    DONATIONS:

    https://www.givengain.com/ap/carina-bruwer-raising-funds-for-muzukidz-24503/

    VIEWING / FOLLOWING OPTIONS:

    1. Regular live streaming and updates will be posted on Carina’s Facebook page and Instagram account:
      www.facebook.com/carinabruwerofficial
      www.instagram.com/carinabruwer

    2. Carina’s progress can also be tracked online on
      https://www.mapmytracks.com/events/carina-bruwers-20km-swim-for-hope-across-nelson-mandela-bay1/race/20km-nelson-mandela-bay-swim-crossing

    Press release and images courtesy of Swim For Hope / Carina Bruwer

  • Description: there are many benefits to the ketogenic diet, as well as some cons. So what can the keto diet bring to you as a swimmer? This article looks at how this diet can impact your swimming.

    Photo by Guduru Ajay bhargav from Pexels

    The world isn’t short of people who are embracing the ketogenic diet. Everywhere you go, you’ll see celebrities talking about how brilliant it has been for them. You’ll find runners who have claimed to have run tens of miles without needing to go to the toilet after sticking to a high-fat diet and taking best keto supplements. You’ll even find deacons embracing various keto diet snacks. Like it or not,  this diet is really everywhere you go. However, is it safe to try? We’re going to bring you up-to-date with everything you need to consider about this diet before you decide whether to try it for yourself.

    What’s it all about?

    If you’re unsure about keto diet with exercise because you simply have no idea what it is, fears not! Were going to take you through it.

    Fortunately, the principles behind the keto diet are really very simple. The key is to ingest high-fat food with low carbohydrates. If you do this, you can put your body into a natural metabolic state known as ketosis. Ketosis causes the body to ban fat stores instead of carbohydrates that it usually targets to burn for energy. However, you will need to eat the right quality of food (no junk). You will need to consume a very low amount of carbohydrates, typically between 25 and 45 g a day, in order to start burning fat for energy. People who have chosen to follow the ketogenic diet with success have always adhered to counting the carbs with accuracy.

    What can you eat?

    If you’re looking at a keto diet for beginners, as a rule of thumb, you will want to avoid carbohydrates, as we mentioned. It is also important to know that you are what you eat, so you should avoid processed food and junk food as much as you can.

    Here are some foods that you might find on a keto diet plan for athletes:

    • Butter
    • Eggs
    • Meet
    • Fish
    • Cheese
    • Nuts
    • Oils
    • Non-starchy vegetables
    • Fibrous vegetables
    • Berries 
    Photo by Sabrina Schulz from Pexels

    The pros and cons

    High-fat diets have had a lot of success in preventing seizures for those suffering from epilepsy. A lot of research has been done to show that the ketogenic diet can help people with type II diabetes regulate their blood sugar levels. This kind of diet has also been linked to a reduction in heart disease risk. 

    Those who are trying to lose body mass find that exercise and ketogenic diet go hand in hand. This is because fat and protein can provide satiety easily, resulting in people eating and snacking less on the whole. This can be great if you are swinging because you can lose weight and build lean protein, which will help you swim.

    If you are a swimmer who trains at a low intensity, i.e. 70% of your maximum heart level, the body will completely rely on fat energy, this makes the ketogenic diet very effective in keeping your weight down and your muscle lean. This proves massively advantageous to swimming where you want to be as light as you can and as strong as you can as well.

    However, if you’re not going to follow the diet accurately, you could experience some discomfort in your gut. Some studies have suggested that swimmers who have been on a keto diet for athletes have had little benefit in terms of high-energy performance. This means that you could lack energy as a swimmer if you want to go all out within a race. Some swimmers have reported not having enough intense energy at the last minute so that they can win a race that can prove very disadvantageous. The best thing to do is to stick to the diet in the long run in order to reach ketosis and get the body used to burn fat.

    Low-carbohydrate diets lead to the body producing many ketones and burning high amounts of fat instead of carbs to gain energy. It can be dangerous for us when out if too many of these ketones are to build up in the body. Too many and you can become dehydrated, changing the chemical balance of your blood. However, steady ketosis can make you reach satiety easier, thus helping you to maintain lean muscle mass. It is also vitally important to drink as much water as you can to stay okay.

    Is it good to try?

    We would thoroughly recommend sticking to it if you’re going to try. it. The body needs to adjust and reach ketosis and a lot of people who have noticed discomfort are those who have not given themselves enough time to adjust. It can be quite difficult because it isn’t the kind of thing you can ease into very well due to its restrictive nature, however, it is still possible to have a well-balanced diet whilst being on keto.

    Keto diet final thoughts

    If you’re wondering is the keto diet safe, we would definitely say yes, as long as you are following it correctly. The benefits of the keto diet can certainly help you if your swimmer,  just as long as you stick to it for enough time to reach ketosis. Do that, and you’ll be swimming like a fish for many years to come.

    Have you ever used a keto diet calculator? Tell us about your experiences in the comments section below.

    Author’s bio: Adam Reeve loves to swim. He has basically been swimming ever since he was in his mother’s womb. Working as a writer, he has time to swim in local competitions on an amateur level. Adam loves to write about swimming and all things related.