Swimmer's Daily

  • Back in 2003, Hall was lining up at swimming meets alongside Olympic champion Rebecca Adlington as part of British Swimming’s world-class potential programme.

    At 11, he was ranked No1 in all freestyle distances, 50m through to 1500m and before long his ever-increasing medal tally caught the eye of tough-talking Australian Bill Sweetenham, who coached Britain for seven years until 2007.

    “I thrived off winning, beating records and the attention. I was fascinated with human evolution and progress,” Hall says. “I was looking up to my hero Mark Foster and Olympic gold medallists, saying that I would one day be there.”

    However, Hall claims Sweetenham “meddled” with his freestyle technique. “From an enjoyable 14 hours per week, it ramped up to 20 hours and if you didn’t do it, you would be chucked off the squad,” he recalls.

    “There was so much pressure at a young age. It was Sweetenham who bullied the swimmers, coaches and ruined it for 90 per cent of the swimmers there. I hated it.

    “I genuinely believe that if he hadn’t come along I would be an Olympic gold medallist, I seriously do. I was that determined.”

    Sweetenham was later cleared of bullying allegations, although one report suggesting 13 Olympians retired because of his no-nonsense approach.

    Read Express

    https://youtu.be/6bfvgrsw7i4

  • Swimmers are being forced out of the River Cam after being “attacked” by parasitic mites that have spread rapidly in the water due to the warm weather.

    The parasitic duck mite appears in the River Cam at this time of year and can cause a condition known as ‘swimmer’s itch’ (or cercarial dermatitis).

    Newnham resident Terry Macalister said the situation was getting so bad, swimmers were being kept out of the water due to the ferocity of the bites.

    Mr Macalister said: “Keen river swimmers like myself are being forced to stay out of the water because of duck mites which are attacking us.

    “A friend said she had 200 bites after a swim last Saturday. I have also been forced to stop swimming temporarily due to bites which are like bad mosquito bites.

    Read Cambridge News

    Photo by subherwal

  • Sometimes the evening news reveals something that causes you to worry about that which you never worried before. Such may have been the case when news emerged recently of a huge uptick in the number of diarrhea outbreaks after people went swimming in a public pool and inadvertently swallowed the water. But that was just the beginning of their problem.

    The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC’s) Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR)1 noted that when they sought medical attention, the diarrhea sufferers learned the pool water they ingested contained parasites and that the parasites, known as cryptosporidium, or crypto, now resided in them.

    Can it get worse? Well, yes: The diarrhea outbreaks have doubled in just a few years, as there were at least 32 known outbreaks due to crypto contamination in pools or water parks in 2016, while there were only 16 cases in 2014, the CDC reported. That’s not 32 people infected; that’s 32 outbreaks that affected multiple individuals. Reuters added:

    “Arizona last year reported that 352 people became sick with Cryptosporidiosis from July through October, compared with no more than 62 cases per year from 2011 to 2015. Ohio reported 1,940 infections in 2016, compared with no more than 571 in any one year from 2012 to 2015.”

    Read Mercola

  • Taxpayers beware: The cost of hosting an Olympics is likely to be far more than advertised.

    The price tag on the 2020 Tokyo Olympics has ballooned to nearly twice the initial estimate, even after a major cost-cutting effort.

    A major reason is that cities exclude large amounts of associated costs when they submit a bid to host the Olympics.

    “Those numbers in the bidding file are almost fiction,” said Shinichi Ueyama, a Japanese public policy expert who led a Tokyo government investigation into the Olympics’ cost.

    The bid figures include only the core components, such as the main facilities, so that the bids are easier to compare. Building design, security measures, transportation and other costs are largely excluded.

    It is common practice, but taxpayers may not be aware that the bid figures are incomplete, and the actual cost will end up far higher.

    Tokyo Olympic organizers said this week that the estimated cost is now 1.4 trillion yen ($12.6 billion). When Tokyo was awarded the Olympics in September 2013, the total was 730 billion yen ($6.6 billion).

    The cost of the 2012 London Olympics tripled from a bid estimate of $6.5 billion to $19 billion.

    Read Fox19

  • Thailand’s Khao Kheow Open Zoo is one of the park’s most popular attractions and one of the only a handful of pools around the world which allow visitors to observe elephants underwater as they swim

  • There is no such thing as a friendly competition!

  • Drowning is the second-leading cause of accidental deaths in children. Mario Vittone, a former U.S. Coast Guard officer, water safety expert and author of the Slate article “Drowning Doesn’t Look Like Drowning,” joins CBSN to discuss how to spot someone who is drowning, and the supervision required to keep children safe in the water.

  • Michael Phelps already has 23 Olympic gold medals.

    Now, the most decorated swimmer of all time is hoping to add a gold bracelet to his trophy case.

    Phelps was at the Rio Convention Center on Wednesday, joining forces with professional poker players Antonio Esfandiari, Jeff Gross and Brian Rast to play in the World Series of Poker’s $10,000 buy-in Tag Team No-limit Hold ’em tournament.

    “Really, just being able to come out here — especially this event, the Tag Team event — it’s just fun, getting together with a couple of guys and literally just enjoying ourselves,” Phelps said. “It’s been something I’ve wanted to do for a long time, and now I semi have the freedom to.”

    See Las Vegas Review-Journal

  • A 31-year-old man died after he reportedly ignored warnings about swimming after getting a new tattoo and contracted a flesh-eating bacteria infection in the Gulf of Mexico. The unidentified man, whose case was detailed in the British Medical Journal, had gotten a tattoo on his right calf five days prior to swimming, Metro reported.

    The man had chosen a crucifix and pair of praying hands for his latest ink, and began suffering from fever, chills and a rash close to the tattoo after swimming, the news outlet reported. He reportedly developed sepsis in his right calf, which had turned purple by the time he was admitted to the hospital.

    Two weeks after he was placed on life support, his condition further deteriorated and his kidneys failed, according to Metro. Doctors reportedly believed his years of alcohol abuse left him susceptible to vibriosis infection and septic shock.

    Read Fox News Health