Swimmer's Daily

  • Scientists now have the dirt on the rubber ducky: Those cute yellow bath-time toys are — as some parents have long suspected — a haven for nasty bugs.

    Swiss and American researchers counted the microbes swimming inside the toys and say the murky liquid released when ducks were squeezed contained “potentially pathogenic bacteria” in four out of the five toys studied.

    The bacteria found included Legionella and Pseudomonas aeruginosa, a bacterium that is “often implicated in hospital-acquired infections,” the authors said in a statement.

    The study by the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, ETH Zurich and the University of Illinois was published Tuesday in the journal Biofilms and Microbiomes. It’s billed as one of the first in-depth scientific examinations of its kind.

    Read NY Daily News

  • A customer who paid only a few bucks for an official 1912 Stockholm Olympics diploma hopes he can flip it for a decent profit in this clip from “Grand Theft Corey”.

    https://youtu.be/Tcbvtb1Q-AQ

  • When to retire is arguably the toughest decision a professional athlete has to make. But for Guy Barnea it couldn’t have been more obvious.

    He may be only 30 years old, but he has no doubt he is ready for the next chapter of his life.

    One of the faces of Israeli swimming over the past decade announced his retirement last week, bringing to an end an illustrious career.

    Barnea reached the Olympic semifinal in the 100-meter backstroke at Beijing 2008 and ended Israel’s 10-year drought without a medal at the European Championships when he claimed a bronze in the 50m back in Budapest in 2010. He took a bronze in the same event two years later and also won a silver medal in the 50m back at the short course continental championships in 2012.

    Barnea represented Israel at 11 World Championships between 2006 and 2017, more than any other blue-andwhite swimmer, reaching the final in the 50m back in 2011 and 2013. He finished in sixth place in Shanghai seven years ago and seventh in Barcelona two years later.

    Read Jerusalem Post

  • Florida Gators senior Caeleb Dressel broke so many records it’s hard to keep count. Take a look at all his record-breaking races throughout the 2018 NCAA Men’s Championships.

  • An Indiana father is dead after saving his young daughter from a car that had rolled into an Indianapolis pond.

    According to The Associated Press, Anthony Burgess Jr., 24, parked his car at an apartment complex Sunday and left the engine running as he went to talk to a friend. His 3-year-old daughter tried to go with him, but Burgess told her to go back to the car, authorities said. That’s when the girl bumped into the gear shift, sending the car into a nearby retention pond, authorities said.

    Burgess “jumped into the water and … got the girl out as the car went into the water,” the AP reported. Neither Burgess nor his friend, who also jumped in to save the girl, knew how to swim, according to WTTV.

    Burgess and the girl were taken to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead. His daughter’s condition was listed as stable, the AP reported.

    See WSB-TV

  • Why Olympians don’t drive super nice cars.
    Not taking a break
    Lets do this

  • Michael Phelps won 28 Olympic medals, the most ever. He won 23 gold medals, the most ever. He competed in his first Summer Games at age 15, one of America’s youngest Olympians ever. He won six golds at 19, a record eight at 23 and went out with five more at age 31.

    You don’t need a Starbucks barista to tell you where he ranks among the sport’s greats.

    But when the wonks at ESPN put their heads together to determine the 20 most “formidable, awe-inspiring and downright dominant athletes of the past two decades,” only two Olympic stars, track and field’s Usain Bolt and Allyson Felix, were on the list.

    Because math.

    “Here’s the issue: There were 34 swimming events at the 2016 Olympics, with three more coming in 2020,” ESPN’s Peter Keating wrote in explaining Phelps’ omission. “And while it makes no sense to count each as a distinct sport, like soccer or baseball, there’s also no way to combine times across distances, disciplines, medleys and relays — and no one rating that weights national, international and Olympic competitions for an annual score among individual swimmers. We’d love to tell you where Phelps and Katie Ledecky rank on our list of most dominant athletes, but we can’t. It’s not our fault, it’s the data!”

    To which many smart people said: No, it is your fault.

    Read The Baltimore Sun

    Photo by jdlasica

  • FINIS, Inc., the worldwide leader in technical swim products, is back at it again! This time FINIS is here to talk about how they can save coaches TIME and MONEY with their new Backstroke Start Wedge.

    For the development of the Backstroke Start Wedge, FINIS worked in collaboration with Vince Harris at WEDG Swim Start Systems (County Cork, Ireland). Vince is an Irish engineer and swim dad who began making wedges for his daughter’s swim team after learning how expensive they were. He had one goal in mind: to create an affordable alternative that fits all standard blocks. If you know FINIS well, you’ve already connected the dots and know that FINIS loved the concept and jumped at the chance to collaborate. With the addition of FINIS’ high-quality design elements, the team is ready to share the Backstroke Start Wedge with swimmers and coaches around the world.

    The FINIS Backstroke Start Wedge is FINA-compliant (FR 2.10) and can be used during training and competition as a way for swimmers to get an explosive start without slipping.

    Read FINIS

  • From 2011 – High School swimmer David Tolstyka unfazed by loss of hearing as he succeeds in pool