Swimmer's Daily

  • A South Australian MP made an embarrassing blunder at the launch of the Australian Swimming Championships as she introduced the star attraction, Ian Thorpe.

    Labor MP Katrine Hildyard introduced Thorpe as one of his former teammates: “Five time Olympic gold medallist Grant Hackett”.

    After an awkward silence, a correction was made.

    “Australia’s greatest Olympian Ian Thorpe, look thank you everyone for coming here today,” a media manger says from the background.

    See Yahoo!7

  • 6 swimmers from around the globe attempt to swim from Europe to Africa. A world champion swimmer, a CEO, a cancer patient, a heart attack survivor, an Olympian and a college professor whose lifelong dream has always been to swim the Strait of Gibraltar. Jetlagged, exhausted and somewhat underprepared, we follow the stories of these swimmers as they battle the freezing elements across two continents. Dodging huge shipping tankers while trying to reach unfriendly Moroccan border agents is just the beginning. This mental and physical “marathon in the dark” will test everyone with surprising results.

  • Sebastian Iwanow is aiming for a medal at the 2016 Paralympics in Rio. He was born without kneecaps and shins. Injuries have set him back several times, but each time he managed to fight his way back to the top. Will his dream of a medal in Rio come true?

    https://youtu.be/t-mFoWNDO8k

  • Donate now at http://www.sportrelief.com/donate – Greg James has 30 seconds to pull on as many pairs of swimming trunks as he can. Can he beat the World Record?

  • Olympic-hopeful Jack Burnell has signed up to join one of London’s newest open water festivals. Hyde Park’s two-day Swim Serpentine is set to take place from 24-25 September 2016 – A month after the 22 year old is due to compete in Rio.

  • The Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro will be the last Olympics for Michael Phelps (USA). Phelps can look back to an incredible and unique career. He won 22 Olympic Medals (18 Gold Medals) and set more records than any other swimmer in the world.

  • Arkady Vyatchanin loves his country.

    He just doesn’t want to represent Russia at the Olympics.

    That stance has left the swimmer in legal limbo with the Rio Games less than five months away, the pawn in a political tug-of-war that again shows just how little the guys in charge actually care about the athletes.

    “I guess I underestimated the burden that I’ll carry,” said Vyatchanin, who lives and trains in the United States and wants to swim for Serbia in what very well could be his last shot at the Olympics.

    Vyatchanin has an impressive resume. At the 2008 Beijing Games, he captured a pair of bronze medals, finishing behind American winners Aaron Peirsol in the 100-meter backstroke and Ryan Lochte in the 200 back. He also has four medals from the world championships — three silvers and a bronze.

    After a disappointing performance at the London Olympics, where Vyatchanin failed to qualify for the final in either backstroke event, he had a falling-out with the Russian swimming federation over his decision to begin training in Gainesville, Florida, under renowned coach and longtime Lochte mentor Gregg Troy.

    More troubling, Vyatchanin had serious concerns about just how committed his country was to the battle against doping, a stance that turned out to be very well-founded given the almost daily revelations of ramping cheating throughout Russian sports.

    Read AP The Big Story

  • Yusra Mardini is a Syrian refugee hoping to qualify for the Olympic Games in 2016. Just seven months ago the 17-year-old made the journey from Turkey to Greece by boat.
    More about this swimmer’s journey: http://on.mash.to/1PgHQzU

    See Mashable

  • With the Summer Olympics set to take over Brazil in August of this year, issues surrounding water pollution along some of Rio’s beaches and waterways are being cast into the media spotlight. For years, surfers and beachgoers who frequent Rio’s gorgeous shorelines have complained of falling ill due to poor water quality. Prior to the start of the Rio Pro last year, the WSL was forced to cancel their backup venue due to pollution issues.

    In a scathing report published by the Associated Press—who referenced a pair of water-quality studies of the area taken over the past year, including samples taken from Guanabara Bay, home to many Olympic events—high viral levels from untreated sewage were found, leading many countries and their athletes to protest to governing bodies.

    So just how polluted are these beaches and waterways?  “We’re talking about an extreme environment, where the pollution is so high that exposure is imminent and the chance of infection very likely,” said Kristina Mena, a waterborne virus expert and professor of public health at the University of Texas. “Those virus levels are widespread. It’s not just along the shoreline, but it’s elsewhere in the water. Therefore, it’s going to increase the exposure of the people who come into contact with those waters.”

    Last year, Kelly Slater said that he believed the contamination level of Rio’s water made him sick.

    Experts have likened swimming in the waters where the samples were pulled to swimming in raw sewage, resulting in “an extreme environment, where the pollution is so high that exposure is imminent and the chance of infection very likely.”
    Read more at http://www.surfermag.com/features/contaminated-water-plagues-rio/#LJUKIF7Z5ZYTS2XW.99

    Read Surfer