Swimmer's Daily

  • Kirsty Coventry, a former Olympic champion swimmer and a current member of the IOC’s executive board, was appointed minister of sport in Zimbabwe on Friday.

    The 34-year-old Coventry was vice president of the Zimbabwe Olympic committee. She also chairs the IOC’s athletes’ commission.

    She was appointed to Zimbabwe President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s cabinet as minister of youth, sports, art and recreation in a surprise move. Mnangagwa won elections in July after replacing longtime ruler Robert Mugabe last year when Mugabe stepped down.

    Coventry won gold medals in the 200-meter backstroke at the 2004 and 2008 Olympics and also has four silvers and a bronze, the most Olympic medals by an African athlete. She shares the record of most individual medals by a female swimmer at the Olympics with Krisztina Egerszegi of Hungary.

    Coventry retired after the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games, her fifth Olympics, having won seven of Zimbabwe’s eight all-time medals. The other was gold by the women’s field hockey team at the boycotted 1980 Moscow Games.

    She faces challenges in her new role with the governing bodies of Zimbabwe’s two most high-profile sports, soccer and cricket, in financial ruin after years of mismanagement and alleged corruption by politically connected administrators under Mugabe.

    Read The Virginian-Pilot

    https://youtu.be/lOpS3LeoxFU

  • Another week and another World Record for the Great British swimmer – but there’s little time for celebration as Ross needs to stay focused on his ultimate goal – making it back to Margate and becoming the first person in history to swim around mainland Great Britain.

  • The RLSS UK National Pool Lifeguard Qualification (NPLQ) is the most awarded lifeguard qualification in the United Kingdom. The NPLQ certificate is more than just a qualification as it can be a stepping stone into a career within the leisure industry.

  • The MTA sucks. Meet the guy who’s taking his NYC commute into the East River. #MiniMocks

  • We’ve partnered with Special Olympics Ireland to raise vital funds with 98FM’s own Brian Maher taking on a swim across the bay from Poolbeg to the Forty Foot in The Big Swim: 10K Across The Bay on September 16th! See 98fm.com/thebigswim and donate here

  • Sinking “Wooden Nickel” boat spills 10 to 20 gallons of fuel to inter-coastal waterway in Dania Beach.

  • Eid Aljazairli’s journey from Syria to the UK was surrounded by water, but as he sat in a boat that took him across the Mediterranean and to the UK, one thing was certain: He couldn’t swim.

    In fact, until January of this year, 24-year-old Eid had never been in a swimming pool before.

    It all started when he happened to come across a video of Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps as he rested in his room at a YMCA hostel in Walthamstow, which ignited a fire in his heart. Now, he swims four hours a day for the chance to one day compete in the very same competition.

    He has been in the country since 2016, having left behind a budding career as an accountant after the war broke out in Syria. He settled first in Scotland and later in Essex.

    ‘I didn’t even know who Michael Phelps was,’ he says, speaking to indy100 on the phone.

    But as I watched him, he was amazing. He was so determined, flying in the water. There was something inside me that was off, and it got switched on – like a passion.

    ‘I want to learn how to swim,’ he decided resolutely.

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  • A moose has drowned in Vermont after a crowd of people taking photographs scared the animal into the water.

    Vermont wildlife officials said the moose is believed to have already swum several kilometres to cross Lake Champlain from New York state, which borders the west side of the lake.

    When it reached the shore at South Hero – part of Grand Isle in the middle of the lake, it caught the attention of bystanders who reportedly crowded around the animal while it was resting.

    It then re-entered the water and drowned of exhaustion.

    Read The Independent

    Photo by Navin75