Swimmer's Daily

  • Congressional committees have been looking into the issue of sexual abuse in Olympic sports, with a particular focus on gymnastics. Now stories of alleged abuse are emerging in swimming. Last month, former Olympic athlete Ariana Kukors Smith sued her former coach, Sean Hutchinson, for allegedly abusing her. She also sued USA Swimming and the U.S. Olympic Committee because she says they failed to protect her.

    Today, there are more than 150 coaches on USA Swimming’s permanently banned list. Almost all are men, most of whom the organization has deemed to have violated its code of conduct, including a section that prohibits “any inappropriate sexually oriented behavior or action.”

    Chris DeSantis, a swim coach in New Jersey, says the actual number is probably much higher than the public list would suggest: “I would estimate the actual number of coaches who have done something that they should be banned for is north of 1,000.”

    Hutchison, the coach, denies Kukors Smith’s allegation. “I absolutely deny having any sexual or romantic relationship with her before she was old enough to legally make those decisions for herself. Prior to that time, I did nothing to ‘groom’ her,” Hutchison said in a statement, according to the The Seattle Times. “I deeply regret that she would make these wild allegations all these years later.”

    USA Swimming did not respond to repeated requests for comment. Earlier this year, USA Swimming CEO Tim Hinchey sent a letter to its members reading, in part “Let me be clear: USA Swimming does not tolerate sexual abuse or misconduct, and I assure you that this organization is facing this extremely serious issue with one very clear goal – protecting children and athletes.”

    Listen to NPR

  • Rescue workers assisted by Thai navy SEALs started teaching some members of a young soccer team and their coach how to swim and dive Wednesday, nearly two weeks after they became trapped in a cave in northern Thailand.

    The boys, ages 11-16, and their 25-year-old coach, have been stranded deep inside the Tham Luang Nang Non cave in Thailand’s Chiang Rai province for 12 days. They disappeared when they went exploring after a soccer game June 23 and were found by rescue divers late Monday.

    But risky conditions including volatile water levels, challenging terrain and heavy rains forecast for the weekend have complicated plans to safely extract them.

    Some of the boys do not know how to swim and flooding in the caves means the boys would likely have to dive to be able to escape, which rescue experts say could be extremely dangerous, especially for people with no experience with scuba gear.

    Read USA Today

    https://youtu.be/pwuVd_KpoV8

  • Alabama swimmer makes splash with Beyonce dance moves

  • About First Hand: CBC’s new point-of-view documentary series gets to the heart of issues that matter to Canadians.

    https://youtu.be/AwZSktKwEkg

  • Hungary, Russia: 3-3 after the opening day

    Hungarian and Russian swimmers staged a strong opening by claiming three titles apiece on Day 1 at the LEN European Junior Swimming Championships in Helsinki. Anna Kesely (HUN) earned back-to-back wins and her junior EC-gold count stands at 12. The Russians doubled down the 4x100m free relays.

    Podium KESELY Ajna HUN Gold Medal HIERATH Yara Sophie GER Silver Medal HORVATH Lili HUN Bronze Medal 400 Medley Women Finals LEN 45th European Junior Swimming Championships Helsinki, Finland Mäkelänrinne Swimming Centre Day01 04-07-2018 Photo Andrea Masini/Deepbluemedia/Insidefoto
    Podium MILAK Kristof HUN Gold Medal SIBIRTSEV Ilia RUS Silver Medal CALLONI Johannes ITA Bronze Medal 400 Freestyle Men Finals LEN 45th European Junior Swimming Championships Helsinki, Finland Mäkelänrinne Swimming Centre Day01 04-07-2018 Photo Andrea Masini/Deepbluemedia/Insidefoto
    Podium MINAKOV Andrei RUS Gold Medal ZENIMOTO HVAS Tomoe NOR Silver Medal MARKOV Daniil RUS Bronze Medal 50 Butterfly Men Finals LEN 45th European Junior Swimming Championships Helsinki, Finland Mäkelänrinne Swimming Centre Day01 04-07-2018 Photo Andrea Masini/Deepbluemedia/Insidefoto
    Podium BELONOGOFF Tatiana GBR Gold Medal ELENDT Anna GER Silver Medal CELIK Tina SLO Bronze Medal 50 Breaststroke Women Finals LEN 45th European Junior Swimming Championships Helsinki, Finland Mäkelänrinne Swimming Centre Day01 04-07-2018 Photo Andrea Masini/Deepbluemedia/Insidefoto
    Podium KESELY Ajna HUN Gold Medal RIEDER Celine GER Silver Medal SALIN Giulia ITA Bronze Medal 800 Freestyle Women Finals LEN 45th European Junior Swimming Championships Helsinki, Finland Mäkelänrinne Swimming Centre Day01 04-07-2018 Photo Andrea Masini/Deepbluemedia/Insidefoto
    Podium Russian Federation RUS Gold Medal Team Italy ITA Silver Medal Team Germany GER Bronze Medal 4X100 Freestyle Relay Men Finals LEN 45th European Junior Swimming Championships Helsinki, Finland Mäkelänrinne Swimming Centre Day01 04-07-2018 Photo Andrea Masini/Deepbluemedia/Insidefoto
    Podium Russian Federation RUS Gold Medal Team Germany GER Silver Medal Team Italy ITA Bronze Medal 4X100 Freestyle Relay Women Finals LEN 45th European Junior Swimming Championships Helsinki, Finland Mäkelänrinne Swimming Centre Day01 04-07-2018 Photo Andrea Masini/Deepbluemedia/Insidefoto

    The Hungarians and the Russians picked up their winning tools where they left a year ago in Netanya when the two nations finished the meet with 11 titles apiece to top the medal standings (Russia came first).

    The Hungarians took a 2-0 ‘lead’ as they captured the first two titles on offer, Ajna Kesely was a cut above the rest in the 400m IM, enjoying a 4.20sec winning margin (the Magyar medley swimmers, true to their nation’s traditions in this event, finished in the first three places in the heats but only two could qualify, Lili Horvath claimed the bronze in this final). Soon the other ace, Kristof Milak – silver medallist at the senior Worlds last July in the 100m fly – claimed his first title in Helsinki in the 400m free after staging a strong finish which saw him coming forward from the third place over the last 100m.

    After this final and two semis he missed the bronze in the 50m fly by 0.05sec, here Andrei Minakov delivered the first gold to Russia with a convincing performance. Soon Kesely grabbed her second title of the day – and the 12th in her career –, it was her third straight victory in the 800m free at the junior Europeans.

    Minakov soon also collected his second gold in Helsinki as he was part of Russia’s winning 4x100m free relay. Among the women the Russians hit the wall first with a comfortable margin too. The only non-RUS/HUN win of the day saw Britain’s Tatiana Belongoff clinching the 50m breast title, just 0.07sec ahead of Germany’s Anna Elendt. The Germans also enjoyed a fine day with four silver medals and a bronze already bagged while Italy opened its campaign with a 0-1-3 haul.

    Champions, Day 1

    Men
    400m free: Kristof Milak (HUN) 3:50.00
    50m fly: Andrei Minakov (RUS) 23.56
    4x100m free: Russia 3:18.21
    (Daniil Markov, Andrei Minakov, Aleksandr Sumilov, Kliment Kolesnikov)

    Women
    800m free: Ajna Kesely (HUN) 8:30.43 CR
    50m breast: Tatiana Belongoff (GBR) 31.29
    400m IM: Ajna Kesely (HUN) 4:41.55
    4x100m free: Russia 3:43.03
    (Sofia Chichaikina, Elizaveta Klevanovich, Ekaterina Nikonova, Polina Nevmovenko)

    Medal standings

    RUS 3 1 1
    HUN 3 0 1
    GBR 1 0 0
    GER 0 4 1
    ITA 0 1 3
    NOR 0 1 0
    SLO 0 0 1

     

    For detailed results and free live streaming please visit www.len.eu

    Press release from LEN, photos courtesy of Deepbluemedia/Andrea Masini

  • There’s no better way to get yourself pumped up than by listening to Beyoncé, but University of Alabama swimmer Christian Strycker took it a step further than that. He not only jammed to Bey while getting prepared for his race — he nailed the choreography to Beyoncé’s performance of “Everybody Mad” at Coachella, too. So, how’s that for a warm up?

    See Simplemost

  • The Wausau Parks and Recreation Committee has given approval for city pools to experiment with free admission days for the remainder of the 2018 swimming season after a resident proposed waiving the fees altogether.

    Committee Chair Pat Peckham says it’s a chance for those who haven’t been to the pools in a while to give them a try. “Maybe they haven’t taken their family there yet, they just haven’t gotten around to it. But, if they go on a free day, maybe they’ll bring their kids back on a couple of other days and we will make our money back.” Others on the committee noted that those at the pool will still need to pay for concessions.

    Peckham adds that the experiment will also let city leaders know how overhead costs such as chemicals are impacted by the extra swimmers. He noted that the pools would be fully staffed on those days to handle the maximum capacity of swimmers allowed inside the fences.

    Pool officials will be responsible for tracking data during the free swimming days such as attendance and incident reports. They’ll also be surveying those who attend to get their thoughts on the policy.

    See WSAU

  • Duncan Scott has been tipped to add to his fast-expanding medal collection with more Olympic hardware in two years’ time – and that confident prediction comes from one of Britain’s greatest ever swimmers, Rebecca Adlington.

    The double Olympic champion from Beijing 2008 and two-time bronze medallist at London 2012 picked Scott’s stunning victory in a high-class Commonwealth Games 100 metres freestyle as her highlight from the pool at Gold Coast earlier this year and now believes the 21-year-old from Alloa is primed to take the next step at Tokyo 2020.

    Scott won a Scottish record from a single Games of six medals in Australia, which added to the two relay silvers he took home from his Olympic bow in Rio and Adlington has been delighted to see him continue his progress.

    “He was my one to watch after Rio. We picked out who to keep your eye on and Duncan was mine,” said the former 400m and 800m freestyler.

    “There were quite a few stand-out performances at the Commonwealth Games but for me it was Duncan by an absolute mile. Even his interviews afterwards, you wanted to give him a hug and say ‘you’re amazing’.

    The Scotsman

  • Woman dubbed ‘pool patrol paula’ as she becomes latest white American to become a viral sensation for phoning police about black people.

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