Swimmer's Daily

  • Furrowed brow. Squinting eyes. Frowning mouth. Most of us subconsciously make a face when we’re intensely concentrating on a task, whether it’s lifting a weight in the gym or catching up on emails.

    Olympic gold medal swimmer Michael Phelps went viral at the 2016 Rio Olympic Games because he was caught scowling intensely while warming up before his meet.

    “I was in my own zone,” Phelps told NBC’s TODAY in a 2016 interview.

    Read CNBC

  • Russian sports officials on Tuesday spoke out against a World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) committee’s recommendations that the country be banned from the Olympics for four years, saying this was overly harsh and would hurt sport there.

    The recommendations, published on Monday, mean Russia could miss out on the next two Olympic Games and world championships in a wide range of sports.

    WADA’s independent Compliance Review Committee recommended the ban after Moscow provided WADA with laboratory data that was found to have been doctored.

    “It’s sad. I can only call these recommendations unfair,” Umar Kremlev, head of Russia’s boxing federation, said in a statement.

    “Russia plays an important role in the development of global sport. How can such a country be banned?”

    Read Reuters

  • Orizzonte claims second title with magnificent first half

    Ekipe Orizzonte clinched its second Super Cup trophy by beating Euro League champion Sabadell in a thrilling final in Spain. The Italians flied high in the first half and took a 2-9 lead but the hosts climbed back to turn the last two minutes into a heated battle, still, they didn’t have a realistic chance to equalise. Orizzonte won this title for the second time after 2008.

    Women’s Super Cup Final, Sabadell

    Astralpool-Sabadell (ESP) v Ekipe Orizzonte 11-13

    With only six players remaining on board from the Euro League winning side, Sabadell faced a challenging match against LEN Trophy-holder Orizzonte, which went through a lighter transformation in the summer.

    With its US aces gone, Sabadell’s offence significantly weakened and that was visible right from the beginning. Two missed man-ups marked that in the first minutes, while Orizzonte found the back of the net twice in 34 seconds in the middle of the opening period. Maica Garcia stepped up to save the hosts and managed to net a fine goal from the centre after 5:18 minutes but Ann McKelvey put away a 6 on 5 so the Italians led 1-3 after eight minutes.

    When Julia Forca scored a bit luckily early in the second for 2-3 it promised that Sabadell might find the right rhythm. What came instead were minutes of horrors for the Spaniards as Orizzonte scored six goals in a row. Arianna Garibotti stunned Laura Esther twice in 51 seconds from the distance and later came three more action goals plus a man-up at the end to give the LEN Trophy winners a commanding if not decisive 2-9 lead by halftime.

    A sharp contrast between the goalies told the story of this period, while Ester was unable to cope with the outside shots, Giulia Gorlero delivered one big save after the other – the number of stops stood 2-10 at halftime, somewhat mirroring the scoreboard. The man-ups were similar at this stage: 0 for 5 at Sabadell, 3 for 3 at Orizzonte.

    To give at least some hope for the capacity crowd, the home side started the second half differently. Marina Cordobes put away a 6 on 5, Kaur Sofi added one more from action, then they killed the first man-down and Forca pulled one more back for 5-9. The surge was somewhat halted by a fine goal from the centre by Rosaria Aiello but the Spaniards kept going, found the right shots to beat Gorlero and came back to 8-11 before the last quarter.

    Last Easter they also trailed 8-11 against Olympiacos in this pool in the Euro League final and then they staged the comeback of the season with a 5-0 rush. Delivering the same plan would have required burying the first two man-ups at the beginning of the fourth, but missing both and then conceding two action goals in a span of 24 seconds turned the project into a mission impossible.

    They tried it, though, with 2:13 to go the gap was reduced to two at 11-13, and Sabadell had a possession. Forca’s lob landed on the bar however, then a 7 on 6 set-up saw a blocked shot and the Italians played out the time to earn a well-deserved win. This also means that the LEN Trophy winners now clinched back-to-back wins in the final, but the Euro League champions still hold a 9-5 lead in the all-time head-to-head.

    Quotes

    David Palma, head coach, Sabadell

    “In the first half the Italians beat our zone defence with unexpected ease, we weren’t as intensive as we should have to. For the second half we changed our game, we went for pressing, played with more aggressively but the distance was too big to cover.”

    Martina Micelli, head coach, Orizzonte

    “The first half was brilliant, we played on a really high level both in offence and in defence. For the second half the game completely changed, just as the referees’ approach which is not that surprising when you play here and we couldn’t react that well. But at the end we played well enough to save two goals to the end and we are really proud and happy to win this final.”

    For stats and play-by-play description visit the following link: http://len.microplustiming.com/lensupercup2019/indexCL_web.php?cal=1

  • Carley and friends are diving off the pier and then head to dinner. They later return and Carley dives in but the tide has changed. This is the day she finds out how fragile she is. It was a honor to shoot this video and hear her story. She is amazing!

  • In December of 2018, life couldn’t have been better for US Olympic swimmer Nathan Adrian. He had just gotten married and was training to make his fourth Olympic team for Tokyo 2020. Then, came something Nathan didn’t plan for. He noticed a lump in one of his testicles and decided to go get it checked out. The next thing Nathan knew, he was being tested and diagnosed with testicular cancer.

    Less than a year and two surgeries later, Nathan is back in the pool training for Tokyo 2020 because he caught it early. He’s decided to share his story in hopes of inspiring other men to be more proactive with their health: “I don’t feel like any less of a man because I have one testicle. And because I did go see the doctor when I did and did catch it early, my outcome was eventually going to be ok.”

    Men, know the facts and take action early. Visit movember.com to learn more.

  • The new research notes that another important factor allowing blue whales to grow so large is their highly specialized cardiovascular system. For marine biologists, however, understanding exactly what makes the blue whale’s heart tick has proven difficult given they’re almost too big to measure. To overcome this hurdle, Goldbogen and his colleagues developed an electrocardiogram (ECG) tag that they attached to a blue whale with suction cups.

    That’s right—suction cups.

    “I honestly thought it was a long shot because we had to get so many things right: finding a blue whale, getting the tag in just the right location on the whale, good contact with the whale’s skin and, of course, making sure the tag is working and recording data,” said Goldbogen in a press release.

    The researchers managed to attach their device next to the flipper of a 15-year-old male blue whale in Monterey Bay, California. The device tracked the rhythms of the whale’s heart as it dove to depths of 184 meters (604 feet), and as it stayed underwater for nearly 17 minutes at a time.

    Looking at the results, the researchers were able to chronicle the blue whale’s heart rate as it went about its daily routine. When the whale made a deep dive, its heart rate slowed to a crawl, beating around 4 to 8 beats per minute (bpm) on average, and sometimes as slow as two beats per minute (the normal resting heart rates for humans is between 60 to 100 bpm). With this radically diminished heart rate, the whale was able to conserve its blood oxygen supply, allowing it to stay underwater for prolonged periods of time and maximize foraging time.

    Read Gizmodo

     

  • A 16-year-old junior at Western Alamance High School is inspiring others with his swimming.

    https://youtu.be/KnT0zg54NsU

  • A former member of the swim team believes Ursinus College overreached with its punishment after the school canceled the rest of the season for both the men’s and women’s swim teams for reportedly violating the anti-hazing policy and student code of conduct. The college characterized the situation as hazing, involving alcohol and underage drinking.

    See CBS Philly