Swimmer's Daily

  • The Nicolino’s Play of the Week comes from Bisons fourth-year swimmer Kelsey Wog who captured four gold medals — sweeping the individual events she competed in — at the 2020 U SPORTS Swimming Championships this past weekend.

  • A senior member of the International Olympic Committee said Tuesday that if it proves too dangerous to hold the Olympics in Tokyo this summer because of the coronavirus outbreak, organizers are more likely to cancel it altogether than to postpone or move it.

    Dick Pound, a former Canadian swimming champion who has been on the IOC since 1978, making him its longest-serving member, estimated there is a three-month window — perhaps a two-month one — to decide the fate of the Tokyo Olympics, meaning a decision could be put off until late May.

    “In and around that time, I’d say folks are going to have to ask: ‘Is this under sufficient control that we can be confident about going to Tokyo or not?’” he said in an exclusive interview with The Associated Press.

    As the games draw near, he said, “a lot of things have to start happening. You’ve got to start ramping up your security, your food, the Olympic Village, the hotels. The media folks will be in there building their studios.”

    If the IOC decides the games cannot go forward as scheduled in Tokyo, “you’re probably looking at a cancellation,” he said.

    Read Tampa Bay Times, Politico, USA Today, Time

    In other news, Olympics Have a $900 Million Reserve Fund for Canceled Games

  • In between Olympics, legendary U.S. swimmer Mark Spitz was a star for Indiana from 1969-72. He finished his Hoosiers career with four team national championships and eight individual NCAA titles. Watch six of those titles here.

  • Sophomore Augusta Lewis was named the SCIAC Women’s Swimmer of the Year for the second year in a row after winning three individual championships at the 2020 Championships in meet record times, taking the 200 IM, the 400 IM and the 200 breast. She currently ranked No. 4 in the nation in the 400 IM as she turns her sights to the NCAA Championships the next month.

  • 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!