Swimmer's Daily

  • Fed-up with the grind of taking a bus or bike to work every day on congested streets in Munich, Benjamin David started swimming there instead.

    The burly beer garden worker now packs his laptop and clothes into a waterproof bag which he puts on his back, dons his wetsuit and slides into the River Isar for his journey.

    “It is beautifully refreshing and also the fastest way,” Benjamin David told Reuters Television.

    “I used to go by bike or bus or car or on foot and you need much longer. Today the current was quite strong and I only needed about 12 minutes,” he said.

    See Reuters

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOruliFUY9g

  • Simone Manuel ties Canada’s Penny Oleksiak for gold with an Olympic record time of 52.70. She becomes the first African-American woman to win an individual Olympic gold in swimming.

  • Michael Phelps claims his fourth straight Olympic gold medal in the event, putting an exclamation point on his dynasty.

  • Black children drown five times as often as white children. A senior synchronized swim team in Harlem is trying to help change that.

  • Sacramento’s Amalie Fackenthal, 17, will be representing the U.S. in the Junior World Swimming Championships at the end of August in Indianapolis. The teen is a top recruit in the sport. Fackenthal is a sprinter who tackles tougher events like the 200m Butterfly.

  • Taipei – He may have won gold two years ago but Jay Lelliot is not feeling the pressure as he looks to defend his World University Games title in the 400m freestyle next month.

  • Taipei – University of Bath student Anna Hopkin celebrated her upcoming 21st birthday in style by winning 50m freestyle gold at the 2017 British Swimming Championships in Sheffield.

    Hopkin, who studies Sport & Exercise Science, set a new personal best of 25.07 as she beat Olympic silver-medallist and fellow Sports Training Village-based swimmer Siobhan-Marie O’Connor to the sprint title on Thursday.

    “It feels amazing, it’s a really great feeling,” said Hopkin, who is part of Mark Skimming’s training group. “I began to tie up a bit at the end but I got my head down and got to the wall.
    “I’m still improving, which is great, and I have a lot to work on. I’m turning 21 on Monday so to do this is the best birthday present.”

  • An orphanage of Haiti children are learning to swim thanks to an Olympic swimmer.

    For the last two days, Olympic swimmer Naomy Grand’ Pierre has been spending time in the pool with these kids. This group is traveling the country singing with the organization “Love Him, Love Them” to raise money to help with improvements in their country.

    When not busy helping others, these kids are fascinated by the pool. But none of them know how to swim, statistics show drowning is the number one cause of death in Haiti where less than one percent of the population knows how to swim.

    That’s where Grand’ Pierre comes in, teaching people to swim is a cause near and dear to her heart because she’s lost three family members to drownings.

    See WSPA

  • Freediving is cool. Some people are way into it. But would they be as into it if they were from Iceland? Or had to do it in freezing-cold water? Meet Kiki Bosch, a cold water freediver who plies her trade in the frigid waters of the North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans. “When you’re in the cold, your mind shuts off,” she says. “You go back to experiencing the moment you’re in.”

    The water where Bosch works is around two degrees Celsius, or 34 degrees Fahrenheit, just above freezing. And she hardly wears anything. She just uses her mind. Which is one of the most powerful tools we have.