Swimmer's Daily

  • Cape Verde has never won an Olympic medal, and despite the country sending only four swimmers to the 2020 Olympics, Latroya, Troy and Jayla Pina have all been chosen.

    See BBC

  • “47 Meters Down: Uncaged” star Corinne Foxx shares her experience learning how to scuba dive as part of her first acting role and how her co-stars supported her in the water.

    https://youtu.be/BhOJXUmvLQ8

     

  • Savannah Guthrie and Willie Geist sit down with Caeleb Dressel, the swimming superstar who just broke several records held by Olympian Michael Phelps at the World Swimming Championships. Dressel talks about how he’s preparing to make a splash ahead of the 2020 summer Olympics.

  • The first gold at the European Diving Championships in Kyiv went to the Germans. They managed to come up with the most balanced performance on the opening day and won the newly shaped mixed team event, edging out the Russians by 4.45 points. Great Britain also opened its account with a bronze.

    Opening Ceremony Kyiv, Ukraine UKR 05/08/2019 Diving Len European Diving Championships 2019 Sport Arena Liko Kyiv, Ukraine Photo © Giorgio Scala / Deepbluemedia / Insidefoto
    Opening Ceremony Kyiv, Ukraine UKR 05/08/2019 Diving Len European Diving Championships 2019 Sport Arena Liko Kyiv, Ukraine Photo © Giorgio Scala / Deepbluemedia / Insidefoto
    Opening Ceremony Kyiv, Ukraine UKR 05/08/2019 Diving Len European Diving Championships 2019 Sport Arena Liko Kyiv, Ukraine Photo © Giorgio Scala / Deepbluemedia / Insidefoto
    TORRANCE KATHERINE GBR Great Britain Mixed – Team Event – Final Kyiv, Ukraine UKR 05/08/2019 Diving Len European Diving Championships 2019 Sport Arena Liko Kyiv, Ukraine Photo © Giorgio Scala / Deepbluemedia / Insidefoto
    HAUSDING PATRICK GER Germany Mixed – Team Event – Final Kyiv, Ukraine UKR 05/08/2019 Diving Len European Diving Championships 2019 Sport Arena Liko Kyiv, Ukraine Photo © Giorgio Scala / Deepbluemedia / Insidefoto
    Team Germany Mixed – Team Event – Final Kyiv, Ukraine UKR 05/08/2019 Diving Len European Diving Championships 2019 Sport Arena Liko Kyiv, Ukraine Photo © Giorgio Scala / Deepbluemedia / Insidefoto
    AUFFRET BENJAMIN FRA France Mixed – Team Event – Final Kyiv, Ukraine UKR 05/08/2019 Diving Len European Diving Championships 2019 Sport Arena Liko Kyiv, Ukraine Photo © Giorgio Scala / Deepbluemedia / Insidefoto
    MINIBAEV VIKTOR RUS Russia Mixed – Team Event – Final Kyiv, Ukraine UKR 05/08/2019 Diving Len European Diving Championships 2019 Sport Arena Liko Kyiv, Ukraine Photo © Giorgio Scala / Deepbluemedia / Insidefoto
    (L to R) Team Great Britain Bronze Medal Team Germany Gold Medal Team Russia Silver Medal Mixed – Team Event – Final Kyiv, Ukraine UKR 05/08/2019 Diving Len European Diving Championships 2019 Sport Arena Liko Kyiv, Ukraine Photo © Giorgio Scala / Deepbluemedia / Insidefoto
    (L to R) Team Germany Gold Medal PUNZEL TINA GER Germany MASSENBERG LOU GER Germany WASSEN CHRISTINA GER Germany HAUSDING PATRICK GER Germany Mixed – Team Event – Final Kyiv, Ukraine UKR 05/08/2019 Diving Len European Diving Championships 2019 Sport Arena Liko Kyiv, Ukraine Photo © Giorgio Scala / Deepbluemedia / Insidefoto

    Medallists, Day 1

    Mixed team event
    Germany 405.50, 2. Russia 401.05, 3. Great Britain 392.00

    Two years after the highly successful first edition, Kyiv welcomed back Europe’s best divers and the first day already saw packed tribunes and a great atmosphere in the Liko Sports Centre.

    To add some thrills to the mixed team event, a new format debuted on the opening day of the Europeans. Instead of two divers, four (or in case of all-rounders, three) composed the respective teams and they were required to show dives both from 3m and 10m, individual jumps by the selected male and female divers and, here came the novelty, one synchro dive from both heights.

    There were ups and downs for all teams but the Germans who managed to keep their balance throughout the six rounds. The numbers tell the story: their all three platform dives got exactly the same points (68.80) and they didn’t commit any big mistake while showcasing their 3m repertoire including a very fine one from Patrick Hausding. The most decorated athlete of the whole event collected his 30th medal at the Europeans, fittingly, it was a gold.

    The Russians, finishing runners-up, did better in the platform but had a slightly ‘below-par’ dive in the 3m by Ilia Molchanov and even though Viktor Minibaev came up with 81-pointer from 10m, at the and they trailed by 4.45 points behind the winners.

    Great Britain’s young talented team got the bronze. Anthony Harding offered the best 3m attempt of the day for 83.60 but the 3m synchro and the first platform dive received low-50s from the judges and that left no chance for the Brits to clinch a shinier medal.

    In fact, France almost passed them at the end since Benjamin Auffret came up with the best dive of the afternoon for 86.70 points from the platform and the 10m synchro dive was also a tied first with the Russians. However, the first four weren’t on the same level, leaving the French to gain the 4th place 3.70 points behind the Brits, but well ahead of host Ukraine.

    Quotes

    Patrick Hausding (GER), gold

    “Of course, we are very happy with the medal. With the Olympic ticket in your pocket, you definitely jump with ease here but I had only one dive in the whole competition, and that credit you with 100 per cent responsibility. So that’s why the pressure is a bit different. We showed a great performance, the competition was stable from start to finish and that makes all of us very satisfied. This one was also – I believe – my 30th European Championship medal but I stopped counting, to be honest. Still, I have a couple of more editions ahead of me so I can add some more.”

    Viktor Minibaev (RUS), silver

    “I’m totally satisfied with the silver medal, it’s a good start for the European Championships. We need to work more to get the gold next time, but it was a good event. I’m really thankful for my teammates as well!”

    Katherine Torrance (GBR), bronze

    “This new format was very exciting, we enjoyed it very much! It was a good start for us, we are pleased with this medal though we had a couple of smaller mistakes which we need to work on to do better in the events coming.”

    For detailed results:

    http://divingkyiv2019.microplustiming.com/index_web.php

    Press release from LEN, photos courtesy of Deepbluemedia / Giorgio Scala

  • Three people were bitten by a shark within a 24-hour span at a Florida beach. It happened Sunday at New Smyrna Beach—the community is known as the “shark bite capital of the world.”

  • No one predicted Shaine Casas would emerge as the most promising male backstroker at the Phillips 66 National Championships, and he has a reason for that.

    “I’m a butterflyer,” Casas said. “It’s just it hasn’t come out yet. So I’m sticking with what I’m swimming well with right now.”

    Casas won the 100-meter backstroke Saturday with a time of 52.72 seconds, making him the fifth-fastest performer in the world this year.

    Read Team USA

  • Ryan Lochte insists he’s a changed man. He said he has everything he has ever wanted now that’s he’s sober, married and the father of two children, including a baby girl born in June.

    One of the most decorated swimmers in Olympic history, Lochte’s approach to the sport has changed. He said it’s now something he does for fun. It’s no longer his main priority.

    While his life is much different, Lochte showed Sunday he’s still the swimmer to beat in the 200-meter individual medley.

    A day after celebrating his 35th birthday, Lochte continued his comeback from a 14-month suspension and won the 200 IM in 1:57.76 on the final day of the Phillips 66 National Championships in Stanford, California.

    “It feels good to be back racing, be back in the sport that I love,” Lochte told NBC after the race.

    Read USA Swimming

  • Pacific gray whales are showing up dead in North America’s oceans and shores at a rate four-times greater than typical. As of July 11, 182 gray whales have been found dead or beached this year in Mexico, the US, and Canada according to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

    While that might seem like a relatively small figure for a species that numbers in the tens of thousands, the dead whales that are spotted by mariners or found on ashore only represent roughly 10% of total deaths: 90% of whales simply sink to the ocean floor when they die, according to Jeffrey Boehm, CEO of the Marine Mammal Institute.

    The gray whale migrates from the Arctic to Baja California in Mexico during the winter before migrating back north in the summer. The whales were removed from the US endangered species list in 1994. Nearly 22 years after the Marine Mammal Protection Act made it a federal offense to harm or kill any marine mammal. Researchers estimate the population has recovered to roughly 27,000 whales, levels not seen since before the peak of whale hunting in North America in the 19th century.

    NOAA is investigating this as an “unusual mortality event,” and so far, the cause of the deaths is inconclusive. Pádraig Duignan, chief research pathologist at the Marine Mammal Center, told Quartz there are several theories that rely on a combination of a lack of food, climate change, and ship strikes.

    Read Quartz

    Photo by Christopher.Michel

  • The Indian Ocean is home to one of the most diverse whale populations in the world – as many as 18 species live there. And no one can get you closer to these hauntingly mysterious creatures than American wildlife photographer Patrick Dykstra. Correspondent Jonathan Vigliotti joined Dykstra as they went swimming with whales in the waters off Sri Lanka.