Swimmer's Daily

  • Swimming survival programs can prevent drowning just as well as immunization protects against disease, says the World Health Organization in its first report on the issue.

    The comparison by the prestigious global health agency is a huge shot in the arm for Ontario’s Swim to Survive program, celebrating its 10th anniversary Thursday, says the Lifesaving Society.

    “The WHO’s report and its identification of swimming survival programs as an important drowning prevention tool is big news for us,” said Barb Byers of the Lifesaving Society. “Basically, it gives us the credentials to expand the program to other provinces.”

    See The Star

  • Hosting the 2017 FINA World Aquatics Championships could cost Hungary 49 billion forints (EUR 157m), though the budget would recover about 10 billion forints in the form of VAT, the government’s commissioner for priority investments in the capital has said.

    Balázs Fürjes said the construction of an aquatics centre in the north of the capital that will serve as the event’s main venue would cost net 21.4 billion forints. Planning is expected to cost net 1.5 billion forints, while net 14 billion forints is budgeted for the construction and dismantling of temporary structures and flood protection infrastructure, and net 1.8 billion forints has been set aside as a reserve. Including VAT, the items add up to about 49 billion forints, he said. The 2016 budget bill allocates 27.3 billion forints for developments necessary to host the FINA World Aquatics Championships.

    FINA announced in March that it granted the right to host the event to Budapest, and an agreement was signed in April. The event was originally planned to be held in Guadalajara in Mexico but the city pulled out in February for financial reasons. Five billion TV viewers are expected to tune into the event worldwide, which has been branded the largest-ever sports event ever to take place in Hungary.

    Despite its high costs, the event is expected to pay an invaluable contribution to boosting the country’s image abroad.

    Read Hungary Today

  • A teenager in Italy recently beat some incredible odds when he survived for 42 minutes underwater, according to news reports.

    The 14-year-old boy, identified only as “Michael” by the Italian newspaper Milan Chronicle, reportedly dove off a bridge into a canal with some friends last month and never resurfaced. His foot became caught on something underwater and it took firefighters and other first responders nearly an hour to free him from the depths. Though Michael remained on life support for an entire month, he recently woke up and seems to be doing fine, Time reported.

    While Michael’s story is certainly unusual, it’s not unheard of for people to survive prolonged stints underwater, according to Dr. Zianka Fallil, a neurologist at North Shore-LIJ’s Cushing Neuroscience Institute in New York. Fallil, who called the teenager’s recovery “quite remarkable,” told Live Science that there are two physiological processes that may come into play when a person is submerged underwater for an extended period of time with no oxygen.

    The first of these processes is known as the “diving reflex,” or bradycardic response, a physiological response that has been observed most strongly in aquatic mammals, but which is also believed to take place in humans. (This is the same reflex that results in newborn babies holding their breath and opening their eyes when submerged in water). When a person’s face is submerged in water, blood vessels constrict and the heart slows down considerably, Fallil explained. Blood is then diverted to parts of the body that need it most.

    “The body protects the most efficient organs — the brain, the heart, the kidneys — and pulls the blood away from the extremities and other, not-as-essential, organs,” Fallil said.

    The diving reflex is often cited as the thing that saves people from nearly drowning. However, it’s difficult to study this reflex in humans (likely because of the obvious dangers of recreating near-drowning experiences in a lab), said Fallil, who pointed to another, less controversial explanation for how people survive long stretches underwater — the selective brain cooling hypothesis.

    “The selective brain cooling hypothesis [states] that, the quicker the brain cools, the more likely it is to survive,” she said.

    When you’re immersed in cold water for a prolonged period of time, your body may carry out several processes that allow cooled blood to enter the brain, according to Fallil. One of these processes, hypercapnic vasodilation, occurs when the body retains carbon dioxide as a result of not breathing. This extra carbon dioxide causes blood vessels in your brain to dilate (become wider), which in turn allows more cool blood to enter the brain.

    Read more here on livescience

    Photo by felizfeliz

  • There has been a recent push of articles regarding banning breath holding in pools lately as well as a segment on Good Morning America. This media coverage and efforts by certain interest groups has resulted in the ban of breath holding activities in New York City and Santa Barbara, California.

    I do not deny that are fatalities happening in pools from people holding their breath. I can easily understand the reaction of many groups who want to ban breath holding in pools. I certainly disagree that banning these activities will lead to reducing fatalities.

    In fact I believe it will increase these fatalities… Allow me to explain.

    • Swimming has risks, people die in swimming pools all across the United States every year. The aquatics industry does not ban swimming. It understands education is the key and promotes swimming instruction. These courses happen by certified swimming instructors.
    • Scuba diving has risks. To deal with those risks people must take scuba classes in order to learn how to scuba dive safely. Most of these scuba classes happen at public pools. Scuba instructors have insurance and pools are placed as additional insured on the insurance policies.
    • Freediving and breath holding have risks, and people learn how to do so safety by taking freediving courses through licensed and insured instructors just like in scuba and swimming. Freediving instructors have insurance and the pools are listed as additional insured just like scuba. These courses happen in public pools just like scuba.

     

    As an advocate for freediving safety I am running into more and more problems by pools saying no breath holding activities and placing arbitrary bans on breath-holding – which blocks me from teaching people how to do this sport safely.

    Read more here on deeperblue.com

  • A Wickham teenager who survived a “scary” 16-hour ordeal after becoming stranded while free-diving off the Pilbara coast swam for up to seven hours and thought he was going to die before he finally reached land.

    Mr Saylor, who had been free-diving with three friends on Monday, was found about 6.40am on a beach on the south side of Delambre Island, by West Pilbara Marine Rescue.

    After being released from Karratha’s Nickol Bay Hospital on Tuesday morning, Steven Saylor described how he swam for hours in rough conditions before he hit the shore at Delambre Island, off the coast of Wickham.

    “Everything (was going through my head), am I going to die, just everything,” Steven told ABC Radio.

    “My main focus was just to get to land and I wasn’t worried about anything else, just to get home.

    “It was dark when I hit land, but I was just looking up at the Rio Tinto wharf and I knew where Delambre (Island) was from there, so I just swam in that direction and found it which was pretty lucky.

    “I was swimming for about five to seven hours maybe, it’s crazy.

    “I am not a good swimmer, but I just swam, I just didn’t want to die, that was my main focus, I just swam.”

    Read news.com.au and see GWN7

  • Olympic silver medallist Keri-Anne Payne hopes the support she has received in the absence of Team GB funding can propel her to the gold medal at Rio 2016.

    Payne, who finished second in the inaugural 10km open water swim at the Beijing 2008 Olympics, lost financial assistance when she decided to take a break from the sport after almost 18 years in active competition.

    See Sky Sports

    See also this related video

  • Swimming is good for just about everyone. It accommodates all ages, stages, abilities and disabilities.

    There’s also evidence it can slow down the aging process.

    A long-term study at Indiana University Bloomington’s Counsilman Center for the Science of Swimming found that Masters Swimmers (over age 35) who swam roughly 3,200 to 4,500 metres (about 3.2 to 4.8 kilometres) three to five times a week, postponed the aging process. And not just for a few years but for decades, according to traditional age markers like muscle mass blood pressure and lung function.

    But you don’t have to be a Masters Swimmer to benefit from swimming. Far from it.

    “The health and well-being benefits start with a minimal amount of swimming,” Counsilman Centre Director Joel Stager is quoted as saying in the university’s newsletter. “If you want the fitness effect, you’ll need to look at getting your heart rate up and boosting the intensity.”

    Another study, by Dr. Steven Blair at the University of South Carolina, has shown swimming dramatically reduces the risk of dying. The study spanned 32 years and followed 40,000 men, aged 20 to 90. Those who swam had a 50 per cent lower death rate than runners, walkers and those who didn’t exercise at all.

    Read EverythingZoomer

    Photo by Örlygur Hnefill

  • Creating a unique and fun introduction to launch newcomers to swimming, USA Swimming has developed SwimJitsu – a new grow-the-sport program that combines swimming, inflatable obstacles and cannonballs.

    SwimJitsu is an in-water obstacle course that includes a series of entry-level swimming skills stages and 10 entertaining tasks. Participants become “swimjas” (a combination of swimming and ninja) by using traits such as wisdom, speed and agility.

    Watch SwimJitsu in action.

    Four-time Olympic gold medalist Missy Franklin (Centennial, Colorado) has joined as a Grandmaster to invite new swimmers to try SwimJitsu and, ultimately, join a swim team.

    “Not every kid is going to get started swimming in the traditional way like I did. What I love about SwimJitsu is that it encourages kids to get in the pool and have fun in the water,” said Franklin. “My coaches have always been creative about making the sport fun and this takes it to a whole new level.”

    “We found a winning formula with SwimJitsu, a mash-up of skill-based competitions such as football’s Punt, Pass and Kick and skiing’s NASTAR mixed with entertaining shows like Wipeout and American Ninja Warrior,” said USA Swimming Marketing Director Jim Fox. “This is a new and compelling way to complement the traditional entry paths into the sport and introduce kids to swimming skills, comparing swim times and achieving goals.”

    Read USA Swimming

  • Olympians Libby Trickett and Eamon Sullivan had some #SuperSeriousFun in Exmouth not long ago when they went swimming with the whale sharks and manta-rays plus a whole lot of snorkeling as part of the BHP Billiton Aquatic Super Series.