Swimmer's Daily

  • The average pool is more dangerous than you might think, according to a new report by the Salt Lake County Health Department.

    In fact, it might be downright disgusting and the reason Cryptosporidium outbreaks outbreaks have doubled from 16 to 32 in between 2014 and 2016.

    Cryptosporidium, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “is a disease that causes watery diarrhea.” The Health Department defines an outbreak as “the occurrence of cases of disease more than what would normally be expected in a defined community, geographical area or season. An outbreak may occur in a restricted geographical area, or may extend over several countries. It may last for a few days or weeks, or for several years.”

    Citing data from the CDC, the Health Department is urging Utahns to not poop in pools, shower before swimming, and for the love of all that is good do not drink pool water.

    “A recent survey found that one in four adults (25 percent) have gone swimming within one hour of having diarrhea,” explained Rick Ledbetter, SLCoHD water quality supervisor. “And 1 in 5 (20 percent) admit that they pee in the pool. That doesn’t include adults who don’t admit it, or children who may not know better!”

    Read KUTV

  • A 72-year-old New Yorker is making waves in the women-dominated sport of synchronized swimming.

    Harvey Burgett began swimming less than a decade ago in a continuing education class taught by Dale Mohammed at Lehman College.

    “I taught him how to swim, then I sucked him into the synchro team and now he’s hooked,” Mohammed, who also runs the Gotham Synchro swim club, told The Post.

    Read New York Post

    https://youtu.be/7FZBFYGyVWc

  • Ask a Canadian which sports they grew up watching or which sports they watch most often in 2017 and you’re likely to get the typical responses. Hockey, soccer, football, baseball, basketball, golf, tennis. You know, the mainstream sports.

    However, ask a Canadian to choose just one sport they’d want their child to excel in and a surprisingly high number will answer with swimming.

    We recently polled a random selection of approximately 1,500 Canadians aged 18 and older from coast to coast as part of The Canada Project and that was one of the sports-related questions asked.

    Only hockey (19 per cent) and soccer (15 per cent) received more votes than swimming’s 11 per cent, which tied with baseball for third place. That’s ahead of more popular spectator sports — not to mention more potentially lucrative ones — like golf (10 per cent), basketball (eight per cent), tennis (six per cent) and gridiron football (two per cent).

    Read Sportsnet

  • A five-time Olympic gold medalist at 22 years old, Missy Franklin shares the lessons she learned while pursuing her dreams.

    https://youtu.be/o1AdGhn1PGU

  • The story of Swedish swimming star Sarah Sjostrom years before she became her country’s first female swimmer to win an Olympic gold medal, at the Rio 2016 Olympics.

  • Join Olympic Medalist Anthony Ervin, the fastest swimmer on the planet, for an intimate and personal discussion about his new memoir, Chasing Water: Elegy of an Olympian.

  • Athletics and swimming mixed relay competitions are among those included at Tokyo 2020 by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), it was announced here today.

    A mixed 4×400 metres relay will be held in athletics.

    A mixed 4x100m medley mixed relay has been added to the swimming programme.

    Male and female BMX freestyle park and 3×3 basketball have also been confirmed as two new disciplines on the programme, as exclusively reported by insidethegames yesterday.

    Mixed team competitions have also been added judo, table tennis, archery and triathlon.

    A mixed relay will be held in triathlon along with table tennis doubles and mixed team archery and judo.

    Men’s and women’s madison cycling races were also added to increase the total number of track events to 12.

    Swimming also gained additional men’s 800m and women’s 1500m freestyle races, ensuring that male and females will be able to take part in the same number of events in the pool at Tokyo 2020.

    Read Inside the Games

    Photo by Sjaak Kempe

  • Most of the things we encounter in daily life are extremely static, or at least unresponsive, compared to the way living things work. That’s true for clothes: You put them on, they stay on, and if you want them to change you unzip zippers or undo buttons.

    But a new class of workout clothing leverages living bacteria, which expand when exposed to moisture and contract when dehydrated. Developed by a multidisciplinary team at MIT in collaboration with athletic-wear company New Balance, the clothes have vents that open automatically as the wearer starts to sweat.

    Read Smithsonian Mag

  • Anthony Ervin knows all too well what it’s like to be stared at and alienated for something uncontrollable.

    Before he was a famous swimmer and two-time Olympic gold medalist, Ervin was just a kid trying to cope with Tourette Syndrome, as his overpowering motor tics would draw negative attention from others.

    “It’s like an itch that constantly wants to be scratched,” he told For The Win. “When I was a preteen and a young teenager, it was really just these bursts of additional nervous energy that came out through mostly my eyelids and other facial expressions.”

    But after years of dealing with the unwanted attention, something he once struggled with when he was younger turned out to be one of his greatest strengths behind the blocks at the Olympics.

    “When I was with those seven other guys in an Olympic final and they’re all freaking out and thinking about how they’re being viewed and gazed upon by all these people back in their countries – all these people around the world – with me, I knew what these jitters were,” said Ervin, who won his first gold medal in the 50-meter freestyle at the 2000 Olympics when he was 19.

    “I was very familiar with them. I didn’t need to be thrust on such a big stage in order to feel that anxiety. It’s something that I coped with daily as a youth, so I felt a little more comfortable in that environment. And I really think that gave me a particular kind of edge when competing on that kind of a stage.”

    Swimming also helped the sprinter manage his facial tics growing up. He learned through his teens and 20s how to give the effects of the neurological disorder space to escape his body.

    Read USA Today