Swimmer's Daily

  • After being allotted $18 million for improvements, the City of Wichita’s Parks and Recreation Department has outlined a 7-year plan for its aquatics facilities.

    The city currently owns ten aquatics parks, including a swimming pool at Edgemoor Park that has been closed due to maintenance issues since 2012.

    In a plan that was presented to Wichita City Council members on Tuesday, the Edgemoor swimming pool would receive a significant remodeling, with an opening date in 2020.

    The plan would also replace four swimming pools—McAdams, Orchard, Boston and Linwood—with water playgrounds.

    Wichita Aquatics Manager Brian Hill says the splash pads combine large fountains and jungle gyms, and will save the city money.

    “[Water playgrounds] reduce our cost of water, it reduces our chemical costs, and the big one, obviously, you don’t have to staff them with lifeguards,” Hill says.

    Read KMUW, KAKE and The Wichita Eagle

  • Guest post by AJ Earley

    Some of my earliest memories are of the municipal pool in Meridian, Idaho. Sometimes my grandparents would babysit us during the summer, and my grandfather would take me to the pool with him when he taught the Red Cross lifeguard class.

    (more…)

  • First time ice-swimming (actually just a quick dip)

    https://youtu.be/apPBS0IE740

  • Ngā Kura Kaupapa Māori Aho Matua in Auckland gathered today to compete in an inter-school swim meet. With Māori over-represented in drowning statistics, it was an opportunity to showcase the positive steps Māori communities are taking to reduce these statistics.

  • Team GB Olympic swimmer Rebecca Adlington OBE cuts the red ribbon at Yorkshire Wildlife Park’s new Giant Otter reserve. See more at www.YWPFoundation.com

  • 1 in 5 adults in the UK can’t swim and, as it’s the only sport that can save your life, we are on a mission to change that! Fusion Lifestyle is offering 1:1 free adult assessments in all our centres and free swim school assessments for children of all ages who want to learn how to swim. Simply visit www.fusionswimschool.com to find out more!

  • South African endurance swimmer, Theodore Yach has completed his 100th Open Water Swim from Robben Island to the mainland.
    Yach completed Monday’s swim in just over three hours in difficult conditions. He previously successfully crossed the English Channel.

  • My experience windsurfing in the Faroe Islands is something that will stick with me forever. For starters, the place is utterly beautiful. Everywhere you look seems like it was taken right from post card. However, I must admit that I wasn’t prepared for the arctic conditions. It was brutal, to say the very least. The waves, the currents, the wind, the large cliffs, the rocks, the harsh weather… it was all so overwhelming. I really believed that if something went wrong, I would be gone forever. It was a relief to feel solid ground under my feet again.

    Read The Inertia and The Red Bulletin

    https://youtu.be/ePeJI_h-18Q

  • On a broken knee a gymnast competes. An obsessed wrestler keeps his rival’s picture in his locker, his home, his wallet. A runner races till he falls unconscious.

    These are not normal people. These are the Olympians. These are people like John Naber, old-time backstroke specialist from the 1970s, who – as rower Steve Redgrave revealed in his book, Inspired – works out that he needs to improve by four seconds in four years to win the 100m gold.

    Four seconds is huge in a world judged on fractions so he reduces his life to fractions. He breaks his life into months, days, hours and calculates he must improve by 1/1,200th of a second every successive training hour. In four years he wins four Olympic golds.

    How do you beat these kind of people? How does Joseph Schooling? Through work but also confidence. By standing on the blocks in five months in Rio and believing he can outswim the greatest swimmer the earth has found. Yes, him, Phelps.

    It’s scary, it’s crazy, it’s fantastic. It’s also why I like the way Schooling talks – with that little swagger of the young athlete trying to hide his nervousness and conceal his doubt and stake his place in a hard world.

    Read The Straits Times

    https://youtu.be/kcePUHG6rHk