Swimmer's Daily

  • This was a 2km mass participation swim taking part in Balatonfured, Hungary. It was on the same day and venue as the Fina 10k Marathon Swimming World Cup event.

    https://youtu.be/U_qQDeksX34

  • In December 2012, the World Anti-Doping Agency received an email from an Olympic athlete from Russia. She was asking for help.

    The athlete, a discus thrower named Darya Pishchalnikova, had won a silver medal four months earlier at the London Olympics. She said that she had taken banned drugs at the direction of Russian sports and antidoping authorities and that she had information on systematic doping in her country. Please investigate, she implored the agency in the email, which was written in English.

    “I want to cooperate with WADA,” the email said.

    But WADA, the global regulator of doping in Olympic sports, did not begin an inquiry, even though a staff lawyer circulated the message to three top officials, calling the accusations “relatively precise,” including names and facts. Instead, the agency did something that seemed antithetical to its mission to protect clean athletes. It sent Ms. Pishchalnikova’s email to Russian sports officials — the very people who she said were running the doping program.

    Read The New York Times

    Photo by Richard Masoner / Cyclelicious

  • From what happens to the body during a race to the attributes needed to be the perfect swimmer, Brazilian Open Water swimmer Poliana Okimoto discuss the sport science behind the event.

  • Swimmers across Britain will greet the longest day by plunging into a pool tomorrow. Many will take that summer solstice dip amid the splendour of a restored public lido or municipal baths as the national appetite for preserving historic leisure facilities grows.

    Last week, the Grade II*-listed Victoria Baths in Manchester, which has been closed since 1993, moved a stage nearer to opening for swimmers again. The city has just announced stage two of a lengthy restoration – with a planned commercial refurbishment of its lavish marble Turkish baths, designed by architect Henry Price and first enjoyed when the baths were completed in 1906.

    “It is a very good time for pool restoration,” says Historic Pools of Britain campaigner, Gill Wright, a swimming teacher and tireless evangelist for the sport. “We are still an aquatic mammal, I believe. We came out of the water and lots of us can’t wait to get back in again.”

    Read The Guardian

    Photo by stevecadman

  • Vladimir Putin has condemned the decision by the world athletics’ governing body to uphold a ban on Russia for systematic doping, thereby excluding its track and field competitors from this summer’s Rio Olympics.

  • Sweden’s anti-discrimination watchdog has found in favour of a transgender person who was banned from swimming topless at a swimming pool.

    The country’s “Diskrimineringsombudsman” (DO) found that the pool’s decision was illegal and that anyone identifying as transgender should be permitted to swim in public pools without having to cover their breasts.

    Local media have said that the ruling, a copy of which has been seen by AFP, could set a precedent and mean that all women wanting to swim topless will be free to do so — regardless of their gender identity.

    DO spokesman Clas Lundstedt, however, told AFP: “The decision is for a particular situation, it does not enact a rule that applies to all pools.”

    Read The Sun Daily, The Local and The Inquisitr

    Photo by AnonPhotog32

  • Whistleblowers have been urged to come forward to help the fight against doping after fresh allegations of Russian wrongdoing have surfaced, this time in swimming.

    According to reports in the Times and Germany’s Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, two senior Russian anti-doping officials offered to stop testing Russian swimmers for money in the buildup to London 2012.

    The former head of Russia’s anti-doping agency Nikita Kamaev and the director of the Moscow anti-doping laboratory, Grigory Rodchenkov, are alleged to have asked the national swimming federation for three million roubles (currently £32,200) a year to remove “two or three leading swimmers” from the testing group.

    This offer, which the swimming federation declined, is reported to have been delivered over two meetings in autumn 2011.

    A statement from swimming’s world governing body Fina read: “These are very serious allegations and we urge anyone with relevant evidence to bring it forward to Fina so that we can share with all appropriate authorities and take immediate disciplinary action if required.

    “Fina is monitoring all developments in the world’s fight against cheating and doping in sport and is taking decisive action to protect the majority of our athletes who are clean.”

    Read The Guardian

    In other news …

    “All these speculations have an impact on sportsmen who have nothing to do with doping and are open to all checks within the framework of the laws in force,” Russia’s R-Sport news agency quoted swimming federation chief Vladimir Salnikov as saying.

    “It is absurd and a provocation on the day of an important decision for Russian sport,” he said.

    Read Reuters

  • A recently released transcript is offering a window into the mindset of a California judge who sentenced former Stanford University swimmer Brock Turner to jail for sexually assaulting an unconscious woman.

    Turner faced a maximum sentence of 14 years, but Judge Aaron Persky of Santa Clara Superior Court sentenced him instead to six months. Prosecutors had asked for six years in prison. The controversial decision by Persky sparked outrage nationwide.

    In the sentencing transcripts from the June 2 hearing, defense attorney Mike Armstrong said Turner “has never denied” digitally penetrating the woman but “in his drunken state, he remembered consent.”

    The judge appears to believe Turner, 20, as he explains his sentencing decision by saying, “I mean, I take him at his word that, subjectively, that’s his version of events. The jury, obviously, found it not to be the sequence of events.”

    While clearly saying “it’s not an excuse,” Persky says Turner’s legal intoxication is “a factor that, when trying to assess moral culpability in this situation, is mitigating.”

    Read CNN

  • Olympians are incredible athletes. There’s no question about that.

    But how about when they try their athleticism in another sport? They can appear to be just a regular Joe Schmoe who doesn’t know what they’re doing.

    In an ad campaign for Milk Life, some Olympic medalists switched sports. In one video, swimmer Elizabeth Beisel met rugby player Perry Baker in the pool. Then they ran some drills on the pitch.

    https://youtu.be/rxLpr3pbVJ4

    Beisel won two medals at the 2012 Olympics: silver in the 400 IM and bronze in the 200 backstroke. Baker, meanwhile, is set to make his Olympic debut. He is one of the stars of the U.S. rugby sevens team, a sport which will make its Olympic debut in Rio (15-a-side rugby was last in the Olympics in 1924).

    In another video, swimmer Caitlin Leverenz, who won 200 IM bronze in London, taught beach volleyball player Jen Kessy, who took silver in London, some swimming technique. And Kessy put Leverenz through some drills on the sand.

    https://youtu.be/jaNk7tOwO_A

    See NBC Sports