Swimmer's Daily

  • Australia’s Cate Campbell says she felt betrayed by swimming in the wake of her flop at last year’s Rio Olympics where she was tipped to win gold in the 50 and 100 metres freestyle events but failed to even get on the podium.

    The former 100 freestyle world champion later remarked that it was “possibly the greatest choke in Olympic history” and broke down in tears in a televised interview.

    Taking a long lay-off after Rio, Campbell has elected to skip the ongoing world championships in Budapest where Swede Sarah Sjostrom smashed the Australian’s 100 freestyle world record with a 51.71 second lead-off swim during the 4×100 relay on Sunday.

    Despite winning relay gold and silver in Rio, Campbell said she felt “let down” by a sport she had worked so hard to dominate. “It hurt me deeply in the way that if you are in a relationship with someone. Swimming let me down,” she said in comments published by The Australian newspaper.

    “It’s strange, because it was 100 percent me (at fault) and I was in control, but I felt like I had given so much of myself to this thing and it had just really let me down and I was feeling really hurt by it.”

    Campbell added that she was too scared to return to the pool until she had a casual swim at her Brisbane training pool six weeks after the Games.

    “I hadn’t been in the water at all, I had no desire to,” the 25-year-old said. “I was bitter and I was angry and I was frustrated and I was scared and I knew I wanted to make changes in my life but I didn’t know how drastic the changes needed to be and I probably needed that first swim to put everything back in perspective and put all of those demons to rest.”

    Read Euronews

  • One in three primary school leavers cannot swim one length of a pool, a report has found, amid concern that a lack of lessons is leading to rise in young people drowning.

    Official data shows forty people aged 19 and under drowned in the UK last year, representing an increase of 25 per cent from 2015.

    In total 300 people of all ages died by drowning last year, with the summer holidays typically seeing a spike in cases involving children.

    Read The Telegraph

    Photo by Monkey Mash Button

  • The swimming “Iron Lady” Katinka Hosszú won gold in front of her home crowd fans, with her third straight 200 IM World Title on the second night of the Finals at the World Championships in Budapest!

  • Members of Aquanuts and Aquamaids reveal the sacrifices – both inside the pool and out – required for elite synchronised swimming.

  • 130 km from Budapest, the Hungarian capital, Lake Balaton has been the scene of gold diggers in open water. And at this little game, the French were the strongest. Can not stop them! Like Axel Raymond, winning a marathon in the water of 25 km in 5 hours 02 minutes and 46 seconds to perfect the balance of the tricolor: 6 medals, including 4 titles … in only 7 races!

  • On day 10 of the 17th FINA World Championships in Budapest, on the first day of the swimming competition Sun Yang (CHN) and Katie Ledecky (USA) received their third consecutive titles in the event. The Netherlands water polo team fell to Russia, who advanced to the quarterfinals and Australia defeated Brasil to advance.

  • A Dublin man (39) has died following a tragic freediving accident in Dahab, Egypt.

    Stephen Keenan, from Glasnevin in Dublin, is understood to have encountered difficulty while assisting a female freediver attempting to dive the Arch of the Dahab Blue Hole.

    Witnesses say the female diver became disorientated underwater and was missing her return line back-up, a breathing apparatus.

    It is understood that Stephen saw the situation and raced underwater to provide assistance.

    A spokesperson for Deeper Blue, the diving company he worked for, told Independent.ie that Stephen helped the Italian diver after she got disorientated at around 50 metres underwater.

    Both divers ascended but at a distance away from where the other safety divers were expecting.

    The spokesperson added that Stephen “suffered an in-water blackout in the last 10 metres of the ascent”.

    He was alive when he was recovered from the water but died a short time later.

    The female diver suffered no injuries and surfaced unharmed.

    Read Irish News

  • Katie Ledecky (USA) grabbed 2 GOLDS last night and she had already started the morning with a Championship Record in the 400m Freestyle! Later on, she would break her own time and smashed a new Championship Record (the 2nd in 1 day) and the GOLD medal in the same event. Her second GOLD arrived in the Women’s 4×100 Freestyle Relay representing USA!

  • On day 9 of the 17th FINA World Championships in Budapest, Tom Daley triumphs over Chinese Olympic champion Chen in epic duel on the 10m. Team China wins first gold in Free Combination, Russian mixed duet back on top in synchro, and Dutch tipped out in waterpolo.