Swimmer's Daily

  • A magician who was handcuffed, chained and locked inside a water-filled tank needed help to get out of the box alive Tuesday, according to reports.

    Spotters freed Spencer Horsman, who calls himself “The escape artist,” when he couldn’t undo one of the last bars holding him inside the tank after around three minutes, according to a video of the performance posted by New Jersey Advance Media.

    He was conscious when he emerged in front of a cheering midday audience outside New Brunswick’s State Theatre. Paramedics took him to a nearby hospital as a precaution, the news outlet reported. It wasn’t immediately clear whether the rescue was a planned promotional stunt or a near-death experience.

    See for instance New York Post and FultonPost News

  • Triathlon, yes, but still also open water, and an awesome video !

  • Two British holidaymakers have told of the moment they narrowly escaped death when a 40-ton humpback whale crash-landed on their kayak.

    Tom Mustill and Charlotte Kinloch were paddling off Monterey Bay in California when the whale suddenly breached and dragged them under water.

    Onlookers feared the worst as the pair disappeared from view. Yet, remarkably, they were left without a scratch and the only damage was a small dent to the kayak’s bow. The extraordinary incident was captured on film by a passenger on a whale-watching boat.

    Speaking to the Telegraph, Ms Kinloch, 30, described the moment the whale hit as “terrifying” and likened it to a building falling on them.

    “It felt like being in an avalanche, like a bus landing on us,” she said.

    See The Telegraph

  • Hesham Modamani looked out at the sea separating him and his dream of getting to Europe, the continent that could finally free him from the horrors back at home in Syria. The 24-year old felt nervous.

    Modamani couldn’t afford to pay the $1,350 ticket for a smuggler to ferry him across the channel between the coast of Turkey and the nearest Greek island.

    Swimming, he decided, was his best chance. The one-time college student had traveled all the way from the Damascus suburb of Daraya to Turkey’s west coast. He couldn’t give up now.

    Modamani turned to his new friend and accomplice Feras Abukhalil, a fellow Syrian. They strapped on their blue life vests and packed away their passports and cell phones in waterproof bags.

    Then they jumped.

    See CNN

    https://youtu.be/B5HSAR84EYo

  • Words from the translator:

    I don’t know if you know about Sun Yang
    I don’t know if you have read about him on the news
    But if you would like to take some time to watch this video, I’m sure he will leave you an impression

    He is a big boy, he is very simple
    His emotions are very straightforward
    He laughs when he is happy
    He cries when he is sad, when he is too happy, when he is winning or when he is losing (yes he cries a lot)

    Somehow the media made him seem very…‘evil’
    Yes he had made mistakes, I’m sure everybody does, and he’s got his punishment and sanction
    But he is trying every effort to correct them

  • On this episode we’re talking about 3 ways to keep your pool water warm to make the season just a little longer.

  • Chinese Olympic swimmer Sun Yang revealed his expectations for the 2016 Rio Summer Olympics.

  • Watch 2016 Chef de Mission Kitty Chiller, Australian Swimming Team Head Coach Jacco Verhaeren and swim team members Bronte Campbell, Emily Seebohm and Grant Hackett talk about the Swimming Australia Rio protocol camp.

  • Olympic and world champion Ruta Meilutyte had surgery on a broken elbow after falling off her bicycle.

    The Plymouth-based Lithuanian, 18, suffered the injury on Friday and had the operation on Monday.

    “It’s going to be a four-week process before she’s back in the water doing regular-type swimming,” her coach Jon Rudd told BBC Sport.

    “It’s not too desperate at all with us being well over 40 weeks away from the Olympic Games.”

    Read BBC