Swimmer's Daily

  • Two months ago, Olympian Ariana Kukors Smith sued USA Swimming, former Seattle-area coach Sean Hutchinson and others in Orange County Superior Court. Smith, who swam at the London Olympics in 2012, alleged Hutchinson groomed and molested her when she was a minor while the sport’s domestic governing body looked the other way. The coach denied the charges.

    “I never thought I would share my story, because in so many ways, just surviving was enough,” Smith wrote on her blog earlier this year.

    Two days after the lawsuit, Tim Hinchey, the president and CEO of USA Swimming, testified in front of the U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce. He noted the organization directed 75 complaints about inappropriate coach behavior to the U.S. Center for SafeSport, a nonprofit focused on preventing abuse in sports, since July 2017. USA Swimming has added 12 coaches to its banned list just this year.

    “However, I regret we continue to receive reports of child sexual abuse in swimming,” Hinchey testified. “The organization can, should and will do more and I will lead the effort.”

    The problem continues to frustrate some of the sport’s highest-profile leaders.

    “In a raw sense, I get really mad. I get really angry,” said David Marsh, who oversees the UC San Diego swim team and served as head coach of the U.S. women’s team that won 16 medals at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics in 2016.

    Marsh recalled addressing fellow coaches during an American Swim Coaches Assn. conference a few years ago.

    “I said, ‘Guys, if you have issues, get the hell out of our sport. Please don’t work with children. Go sell vacuum cleaners,’” Marsh said.

    “If I’d had situations like this come up in the old way, we jacked them up against the wall and said, ‘Are you out of your … mind? … If you’re going to be a coach, you’re here to coach. You’re not here to be their best friend or their companion or their shoulder to cry on.”

    Read Los Angeles Times

    https://youtu.be/pFJOf0ParCA

     

  • From 13th – 19th August Dublin, Ireland will be hosting the 2018 World Para Swimming Allianz European Championships.

  • Starting next month, Sarah Hirshland will officially take over as CEO of the U.S. Olympic Committee. One of the big issues she will have to deal with is ongoing sexual abuse scandals.

    In recent months, athletes have come forward in sports like swimming, gymnastics, diving, and taekwondo with allegations of sexual abuse or assault. Many athletes don’t go public until years after the alleged assaults take place. They stay silent in part because of the taboo around sexual abuse. In some cases, young people can’t identify what has happened to them as a crime.

    But a major reason athletes stay silent is fear that publicly criticizing sport governing organizations could derail their athletic career.

    Listen to NPR

  • Swimming instructor, lifeguard and adventurer Yane Petkov – Bulgaria’s answer to Houdini and Michael Phelps combined – reclaimed on Tuesday the Guinness world record for swimming along with his hands and feet tied while fully wrapped inside a sack.

    Petkov, 64, swam 3,380 meters in Macedonia’s Lake Ohrid, beating the record of Indian fisherman Gopal Kharvi, who in 2013 swam 3,071 meters in the Indian Ocean – though not in a sack.

    The Bulgarian swimmer already had one entry in the Guinness Book of Records in 2013 with 2,030 meters, but he only held it for three months until he was overtaken by Kharvi.

    Before his latest attempt, Petkov said he had planned to swim 3.5 kilometers, and Guinness observers were present for his swim, organized by the Red Cross and the waters sports clubs of Ohrid and Petric.

    Petkov took around three hours to worm his way along through the water, face-up and feet first, before he emerged on the shore in the ancient town of Ohrid, a popular holiday resort.

    Read Reuters

  • Watch day three heats of the British Summer Championships live from the Ponds Forge International Sports Centre, Sheffield.

  • A new robot designed to give you an extra set of eyes on your swimming pool could help save children from drowning.

    Lee Kambar is a father who says he was motivated to find a way to protect lives and give parents and first responders critical extra seconds to respond to possible emergencies.

    The Morningstar system is a drone device that floats in the middle of your pool, KPHO reports.

    Above the water’s surface, a camera with 360-degree rotation monitors movements around the pool. If someone approaches the water, a motion detector is triggered and you’ll get a notification. The camera can also recognize faces, Kambar says.

    A second camera underwater will send sound and live video to your device the moment someone enters the pool.

    “Say you miss that (first notification), then you get a second notification from the bottom camera showing you a live image inside the pool of your kid dealing with a crisis. From there you can push “emergency contact” and dispatch images and services to the address where Morningstar resides,” said Kambar.

    See ABC13

  • Watch day two finals of the British Summer Championships live from the Ponds Forge International Sports Centre, Sheffield.

  • Nick and Colleen Anthony have spent summers at the pool, been on swim teams and even played underwater hockey in college. They have grown up swimming. Nick starting at age 9 and Colleen at age 6.