Swimmer's Daily

  • Moving further into the weird and wacky, is the new invention out of the intriguing nation — True Wetsuits. But these aren’t any old wetsuits, these are actual suits. Because being literal has never been so cool.

    Most surfers would agree there would be nothing better than getting to the ocean after a hard day’s work, grabbing the surfboard and running straight in. The five minutes it takes to change are perhaps the most wasted in a young surfer’s life.

    See Mashable

    https://youtu.be/UutiBRDxJ0U

  • The races were tight, the finishes competitive. But the times were off.

    For the male swimmers at the Arena Pro Swim Series last week, the meet raised concerns. Mostly that, in most of their individual events, their times were not close to the best times in the world this year.

    Even 18-time Olympic gold medalist Michael Phelps, for example, who won two events (100 butterfly and 100 freestyle) in his return from his six-month suspension, did not crack the top 20 in the world with his times in either event. He wasn’t alone; event finals across the board were won with times significantly slower than what the best in the world has posted this year.

    On the women’s side, that wasn’t true, due in large part to Katie Ledecky and her penchant for breaking or threatening to break her own world records. But the lagging men’s times were eye-opening, and they go beyond this specific meet.

    Read USA Today

    Photo by marcopako 

  • A #SwimBiz Presentation by Debbie Hesse, Executive Director, USA Swimming Foundation

  • Documentary filmmaker and diver Johnny Debnam, 29, was snorkeling with friends two weeks ago when the friendly giant of the deep came in for a closer look.

    “We were snorkeling in about 4 meters of water. We were filming the big stingrays and I was freediving down to the bottom,” Debnam said.

    “This particular ray actually swam over the top of me twice and completely covered my body.”

    See New York Post

  • The head coach of Chinese swimming team has tried to keep a low key ahead of July’s world championships in Kazan, Russia, saying that it looks a mission impossible to repeat their feat of winning five gold medals at the last worlds.

    “It will be very tough for us to win five titles as we did last time in Barcelona, because top swimmer Sun Yang is yet to reach peak form,” Yao Zhengjie told Xinhua Thursday after the conclusion of the Chines national swimming championships.

    Sun Yang, who claimed three individual freestyle gold medals at the Barcelona worlds in 2013, swept four freestyle events – 200m, 400m, 800m and 1,500m – at the national championships, held this week in Baoji, Shaanxi Province.

    But, his 200m free time, 1:45.75, was slower than German veteran Paul Biedermann, who timed 1:45.60 in the German championships. Sun’s 400m free time, 3:44.53, ranked fourth in the world, while his signature 1,500m free time, 15:00.73, was only sixth on the global ranks and far behind his own world record.

    Australia’s 18-year-old Mack Horton, who holds the world fastest time in three events, is expected to be Sun’s main threat in Kazan.

    “Sun trained well in Australia, but the results here were not so good,” said Yao. “It’s probably because it is his first competition this year, and hopefully he will swim better at the Kazan Worlds.”

    Similarly, double Olympic champion Ye Shiwen is struggling for form despite winning two medleys at the Nationals. Ye, who failed to win a medal at the 2013 Barcelona Worlds, ranked seventh in the 200m while fourth in the 400m in the world.

    Read Xinhua

  • A #SwimBiz presentation by Lauren Pasquale, U.S. Olympic Committee Digital Media Director.

  • A #SwimBiz presentation by Jayme Deerwester, Reporter, USA Today.

  • “Here we go daddy!” :-)

  • A University of Victoria student is making waves both on and off-shore after he became the first person in the world to defend his master’s thesis underwater.

    Mike Irvine, who studies education, live-streamed his exam on YouTube Monday from six metres (20 feet) below the surface.

    “It was a project that’s been evolving and growing for the past four years,” Irvine told The Huffington Post B.C. in a phone interview. “I wanted to share that diving experience with other people.”

    See Huffington Post