Swimmer's Daily

  • IU swimmer Lilly King was named the Big Ten Women’s Swimmer of the Year on Tuesday after winning NCAA titles in the 100 and 200 breaststroke. The freshman becomes the seventh Hoosier to earn the honor.

  • University of Florida Swim Coach Greg Troy discusses how SuperSwim has been a part of his olympic swimming career since he started in Fort Myers, Florida.
    http://SuperSwim.com for more

  • The World Anti-Doping Agency will study allegations of cover-ups of positive drugs tests by Chinese swimmers following claims in a British newspaper.

    The Times reported on Thursday that it had been approached by whistleblowers in Chinese swimming who said that five positive tests had been kept secret.

    It also said that coach Zhou Ming had been working with swimmers in Tianjin. Zhou was banned by world governing body FINA in 1998 after overseeing the scandal at the world championships in Perth, Australia, when four swimmers tested positive and vials of human growth hormone were discovered in a swimmer’s bag by Australian customs authorities.

    “These are very serious allegations concerning Chinese swimming that warrant further examination,” WADA spokesman Ben Nichols said. “WADA is now fully scrutinizing the information that The Times newspaper has passed on to us so that we can determine exactly what the appropriate steps are and so that we can address this matter head on.”

    China’s anti-doping agency responded to the allegations by saying it had recorded six recent positive tests by Chinese swimmers and denying any cover-up.

    Zhao Jian, deputy director of the Chinese agency known as CHINADA, said it had recorded three positive tests, all for clenbuterol, in late August and early September. The swimming federation will soon issue punishments in those cases and the results will be made known, he said.

    Zhao said there have also been three positive tests since the beginning of 2016, all in January, but those remain under investigation and will be publicized within 20 days of punishments being issued in accordance with WADA regulations. He said the World Anti-Doping Agency has been kept informed about all positive tests.

    Read WSB-TV

    Photo by Philip Jägenstedt

  • The trial of a former Stanford athlete charged with sexually assaulting an unconscious drunk woman at a frat party got off to promising start on the fourth day of testimony Tuesday, with witness testimony Tuesday supporting Brock Turner’s claim that the alleged victim didn’t appear sloppy drunk.

    But by day’s end, the prosecution had gutted the credibility of the defense’s star expert witness, increasing the pressure on 20-year-old Turner to win over the jury Wednesday when he takes the stand and offers his account for the first time.

    The slim, clean-cut blond Midwesterner has pleaded not guilty to three felony charges: sexually penetrating an intoxicated person, sexually penetrating an unconscious person, and assault with intent to commit rape. If he is convicted, he would face a minimum of eight years in prison and a maximum of 22 years. He is expected to testify that the woman, who was 22 at the time of the Jan. 18, 2015 incident at the Kappa Alpha fraternity, did not appear extremely drunk and consented to the sexual encounter, but was too inebriated to remember.

    Prosecutor Aleleh Kiancerci, on the other hand, contends that the woman was clearly extremely drunk — and Turner knew it. She was found unconscious with her bra pushed up, her underpants and her hair ground into a bed of pine needles when two bicylists rode by and saw Turner atop her making a thrusting motion. She did not wake up for at least three hours. The woman’s blood-alcohol was more than .24, or three times the legal limit. Turner’s blood-alcohol content was .17, or more than twice the legal limit of .08.

    Read Daily Democrat

  • Wearing just a Speedo, an extreme swimmer on Tuesday braved a dip with sharks in an effort to raise awareness of ocean conservation.

    Justin Coetzee faced one of the world’s most feared predators when he, along with shark handlers, made the daring dive at the Two Oceans Aquarium in Cape Town, for which he is the brand ambassador.

    Photographer Stéphane Gautronneau swam with them.

    “It was a fantastic experience,” Coetzee told News24 after his feat.

    “It was just me and my Speedo. It was wonderful.”

    Read News24

  • A 5-year-old girl has been credited with saving her mother’s life after she fell unconscious in their swimming pool in South Texas.

    The rescue, captured on home surveillance video, shows Tracy Anderwald face down in the pool at their home near Portland on Friday.

    The video shows Allison Anderwald wading in, dragging her mother to the shallow end and turning her over so she is able to breathe.

    See NBCDFW

    https://youtu.be/ITG3YrMmWP4

  • The stunning waters off the island of Jamaica are threatened by invasive venomous lionfish. Fortunately for the coastal ecosystem, local fisherman and chefs have teamed up to eliminate the lionfish, one delicious fillet at a time.

  • Pole dancers show off their AQUA-batic skills as they run through their routines underwater. Professional photographer Brett Stanley, 40, set out to capture the grace of the dancers’ moves when taken out of the context of a strip club. The elegant images feature a mixture of amateur pole dancers and novices keen on grappling with the logistical challenges of pole dancing underwater. Shot over a few months, Brett worked with the dancers to create the series, teaching them how to hold their breath under the water and collaborating on which poses worked best. To see more of Brett’s incredible photography, visit his website at: www.underwater-photographer.com

    https://youtu.be/kGJl6gLvklM

  • FINA is aware of the allegations made in today’s Times, and that further allegations may be made in the coming days. We have called on the Times to share with us any information they may have which might assist us in our primary objective of protecting clean athletes in swimming. Any new allegations of doping in our sport, which are substantiated by evidence and which have not already been addressed, will be investigated as a matter of utmost urgency, because we have absolutely zero tolerance for the use of performance-enhancing substances in swimming.

    However, it should be noted that while FINA is not aware of any concrete evidence of systemic doping in Russian swimming, we have taken a particularly robust approach to our anti-doping procedures in relation to Russia and Russian competitions, in light of WADA’s recent investigation.

    During the 2015 FINA World Championships in Kazan, Russia, 645 samples were collected for analysis by the FINA Doping Control Review Board, led by Professor Andrew Pipe, as part of the in-competition testing programme. These comprised 457 urine and 188 blood tests. There were a further 418 blood screenings as part of the Athlete Biological Passport programme. These tests were analysed in the then-WADA-accredited laboratory in Moscow, under the supervision of independent observers from the WADA-accredited laboratories in Barcelona and London.

    Following the results of the WADA investigation, FINA issued a directive to ensure the continued integrity of the testing programme. Every single sample collected during the World Championships has been transferred and stored in the WADA-accredited laboratory in Barcelona. The entirety of FINA’s unannounced out-of-competition doping control programme in Russia is now conducted by a third-party independent of FINA and RUSADA, the Swedish company IDTM.

    In the 2014 season the majority of out-of-competition doping control tests were analysed by the WADA-accredited laboratory in Moscow, judged fully compliant with the WADA code at the time. However, following the announcement of the official investigation, FINA made the decision to move a significant majority of Russian athletes’ samples out of Russia for analysis. In 2015, the great majority of the samples collected in Russia were analysed in the WADA-accredited laboratories in Barcelona and Köln. The samples of Russian athletes living or training outside Europe were analysed in the WADA-accredited laboratories in Montreal (CAN) and Salt Lake City (USA). 100% of samples collected in Russia will be analysed in these overseas laboratories in 2016.

    FINA is currently conducting target-testing for the 10 best-performing athletes in each event, with at least five tests prior to the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. FINA publishes the entirety of these statistics as well as the decisions of its FINA Doping Panel on the FINA website, where they remain until bans are spent.

    Read FINA.org

    https://youtu.be/DRYRGoI97FI