Swimmer's Daily

  • At the World Championships in Kazan, Ryan Lochte used a new freestyle turning technique, pushing away from the turn while still on his back, and then utilising his powerful dolphin kicks until turning to a prone position just before surfacing at the 15m mark.

    https://youtu.be/_0chtVhd6fs

    While this is no problem in normal freestyle swimming, the regulation in medley does not allow dolphin kicks while in a supine position, which FINA now clarifies.

    The rules state that the last leg of medley is to be swum freestyle, and that freestyle here is any other style than backstroke, breaststroke or butterfly. Backstroke is defined as when the swimmer is lying on his or her back, which means that dolphin kicks in a supine position is also backstroke. And backstroke is as mentioned one of the styles that are not allowed in the freestyle leg of medley.

    The FINA officials have been clarifying this at the ongoing World Junior Swimming Championships in Singapore, that the “Lochte technique” is punishable by disqualificiation. An official interpretation will be published shortly, according to swimsportnews.de

    Read swimsportnews.de (in German)

    (and please excuse me if there are errors in my translation here)

  • Images and setup time-lapse of a studio that I put together in a pool to photograph two swimmers.

  • Meet Ben Hooper, the man who’s swimming from Senegal to Brazil in a bid to become the first person to swim the Atlantic Ocean.

    More people have landed on the moon than have swum an ocean in full, Ben is hoping to add his name to that list. It’ll take him around 120 days of swimming in two sessions, totaling around 2000km. He’ll sleep on a support boat over night to avoid the risks of sharks and jelly fish.

    Speaking to Caroline Barker he said he was motivated by “a little bit of ego… I’d be a liar if I said there isn’t an element of me trying to push myself and see what I’m capable of, but I think this is something so much bigger, it’s about showing that nothing’s impossible.”

    See BBC

  • Swimming’s world governing body has cleared Chinese Olympic champion Sun Yang of any wrongdoing following complaints over his behavior at this month’s world championships in Russia.

    FINA executive director Cornel Marculescu told Reuters the altercation that led to a complaint against Sun was the result of overcongestion in the warmup pool in Kazan and did not warrant further action.

    “There was a misunderstanding in the pool,” Marculescu said.

    “In Kazan, we have over 1,000 swimmers, so the preparation pool became very crowded.”

    (more…)

  • Austrian Long Distance Swimmer Sale Savel swims round the Island of Jersey (Channel Islands/English Channel). 10h48, about 58km / 36Mi (tidally assisted).

  • Was Joseph Schooling​’s FINA Swimming​ World Championships bronze medal winning performance a fluke? The swimmer tells SuperSports 360​ how he intends to prove he’s no one-hit wonder. Potentially in his way, former idol Michael Phelps​, but that only seems to excite the University of Texas at Austin​ student even further

    https://youtu.be/kcePUHG6rHk

  • Professional swimmer Michael Andrew works his way through a training session at his Lawrence, Kansas home.

  • Whether you’re a competitive swimmer or a weekend warrior, the Kings of the Coast Ocean Swim is your chance to conquer one of four open water distances – 3.8km, 2km, 1km or a free 300m Kids Dash.

    https://youtu.be/euZkLxeFx_0

  • Ben Lecomte swam across the Atlantic in 1998, this year he plans on swimming the Pacific Ocean. He’ll leave from Tokyo and arrive an estimated six months later in San Francisco with the aid of a GPS tracker,