Swimmer's Daily

  • Audiences going to New York Theatre Workshop will see something unusual when they enter — a swimming pool. Not a little wading pool or artful images of water. A real pool.

    Tony Award-nominated set designer Riccardo Hernandez conceived of the audacious 40-foot-long, 4-foot-wide pool for playwright Lucas Hnath’s swimming drama “Red Speedo,” which opens Thursday.

    “We knew we had to have the element of water, but we didn’t know how,” said Hernandez during a tour of his pool, which is heated and has lights embedded underneath.

    The elevated pool runs the length of the stage and its glass panes allow the audience to see actors really swimming, like peering into a cross-section of an Olympic-sized aquarium. Steel and glass hold back thousands of gallons of water.

    “We knew that since we had real water, everything that we used had to be real materials,” said Hernandez, whose Broadway credits include “The Gin Game,” ”The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess,” ”Caroline, or Change” and “Parade.”

    “Red Speedo” is about a swimmer who, on the eve of his Olympic trials, is implicated in a drug scandal. It explores the business of winning and the attraction of juicing. (Hernandez calls it a mix of “ancient Greek and David Lynch.”)

    Read WTOP and see nytw.org

  • Gear up for tonight’s ‪#‎ArenaProSwim‬ finals in Orlando with a look at Michael Phelps‘ 100m fly prelim swim from this morning. The live stream of tonight’s finals begins at 6 p.m. ET: bit.ly/1eWUSVv

  • Guest post by Jez Birds, originally posted on SwimPath

    There has been much debate recently regarding principles of training, with short, high intensity intervals gaining lots of momentum as the modality of choice for fitness enthusiasts around the globe. Safe to say the debate reaches far in to the swimming world also with the publicity surrounding USRPT (Ultra Short Race Pace Training) and its scientific standing within the realms of performance enhancement. (more…)

  • Join Nils and Per when they get out in the archipelago in the middle of winter. It is possible to do swimrun all year round however, in the winter warmer equipment and a little more planning is required.

  • The last time that Michael Phelps competed in Orlando, he had yet to capture any of his record 22 Olympic medals.

    He was a golden boy in waiting, so to speak.

    “Two thousand and four, nationals, I just missed the 200 back world record,” Phelps said. “I think it was 1:55:12 or 15, and I was [1:]55.3. Yeah, I think I was lane three.”

    Read Orlando Sentinel

  • A glittering collection of the world’s greatest sports stars have been nominated for the 2016 Laureus World Sports Awards, following a ballot by the world’s media. Including Adam Peaty, Katie Ledecky, Michael Phelps and Daniel Dias.

  • Mark Healey might be part fish. The pro big-wave surfer can hold his breath underwater for six minutes. He once swam with a great white shark, hanging onto its dorsal fin.

    And recently, the freediver got up close and personal with overfished sharks off the coast of Japan so he could tag them for scientists.

    See Discovery News

  • The 24-year-old bottle blonde behind Sweden’s bikini-clad ‘grope-watch’ vigilantes has been accused of spurring fear and racism at the pool where she launched her campaign, with the manager saying staff have received a deluge of hate mail since she began last month.

    Meanwhile, the Telegraph has learnt that the co-founder of the group’s Stockholm spin-off last year received a suspended prison sentence for taking part in a neo-Nazi attack on anti-racist protesters, armed with a knife.

    Siri Bernhardsson and friends, who refer to themselves as the “tafsvakten” or “grope-watch”, started patrolling the local swimming pool in Kalmar, southeast Sweden, last month in a bid to deter migrants from molesting female bathers.

    But their campaign has sparked outrage among locals and the swimming pool’s management, who say the stunt is encouraging racism towards refugees.

    Read The Telegraph

  • A serious medical ailment has almost certainly ended Roanne Ho’s dreams of competing at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.

    But the swimmer is firmly on the road to recovery, and the mighty scare may just be the catalyst that re-ignites the spark to win more medals for Singapore.

    It has now been a month since the 23-year-old was discharged from hospital after surgery and she returned to the pool two Fridays ago.

    But her doctor advised her against competing in this month’s Singapore National Age Group (SNAG) Championships – the final opportunity for local swimmers to meet the required times to make the cut for the Olympics in August.

    There was speculation that she would retire from competitive swimming, but Ho ended all that talk when she said yesterday: “I’m quite disappointed (that the Olympic dream is over), but I believe everything happens for a reason.

    “I think I am now targeting the 2017 SEA Games.

    Read The New Paper