Swimmer's Daily

  • A glass “sky pool” is planned to be suspended between apartment blocks in London’s new Nine Elms quarter, close to Battersea Power Station.

    The 25-metre-long pool will link two blocks of apartments that form part of the 2,000-home Embassy Gardens development by London architects HAL, now in its second stage.

    At five metres wide and three metres deep, the pool will allow residents to swim between the two buildings while enjoying views of London through the pool’s completely transparent 20-centimetre glass casing.

    Intended to resemble an aquarium, the pool was designed by architecture firm Arup Associates with specialist advice from structural design engineers Eckersley O’ Callaghan and aquarium designers Reynolds.

    The residential blocks, developed by the Ballymore Group, will also feature a rooftop bar, spa and orangery. An additional bridge forms a second link, allowing residents and visitors to walk between the buildings as well as paddle.

    See for instance dezeen.com

  • Charlotte Samuels, of Ridgewood, is preparing to swim 20 miles from Long Island to the Jersey Shore. This should be no problem after what she accomplished last summer, swimming the 28-mile Manhattan Island Marathon Swim, the 20-mile Catalina Channel.

  • Your personal fitness tracker, now with lap counting technology.

    Swimmers, now it’s your time to Shine.

    https://youtu.be/be30GagUvrY

  • South Korean wind surfer Wonwoo Cho got his first ride in an ambulance the other day, taken to a Rio de Janeiro hospital with dehydration, vomiting, a headache and dizziness.

    Cho is one of four athletes to have “officially” fallen ill so far at the week’s Olympic sailing test event in Rio de Janeiro’s polluted Guanabara Bay. Officials acknowledge the reporting is incomplete with many teams and some of the 300 athletes skittish about disclosing illnesses.

    The 20-year-old Cho on Wednesday was back to “50-60 percent” strength and out training, 24 hours after his hospital stay. He said he doesn’t know “the exact reason why I got so sick.”

    His coach has fewer doubts.

    “Probably it’s from the water,” Danny Ok, Cho’s coach and an exercise physiologist, told The Associated Press on Wednesday. “It’s kind of a sad story.”

    Ok described the water as “smelly” and added: “Especially in the bay, it’s terrible. I can’t imagine how they can have racing in this area.”

    Read for instance The Southern

    https://youtu.be/nOt8UdyskIY

  • At four years old, Eva Dunham is like a little fish in the water. Swimming laps, doing somersaults and not wanting pool time to end.

    “I’m very proud of her, she’s worked hard,” said her mom

    Jessica Dunham knows her little girl got a second chance after a near tragedy at the family pool two years ago. One second she could see Eva on the back porch. And the next?

    “I found her face down floating in our family pool. By the time I got to her she was completely lifeless, blue,” Jessica said.

    See wnyt.com

  • To use them, you start by looking towards your destination (probably a buoy or landmark), then pressing a button on the goggles to save that heading. Once you start swimming, the onboard electronics will detect any deviations from your course toward that point – this includes drifting due to currents or wind.

    See gizmag and www.oncoursegoggles.com

  • Online retailer Allearplugs.com are continuing to raise awareness for hearing loss with their Save Your Hearing Campaign. Hearing loss affects people all over the world. 1 in 6 people in the UK and 15 per cent of all American adults suffer some form of hearing impairment. This month, Save Your Hearing is focussing on swimmer’s ear – a painful and irritating condition that affects thousands of people around the world.

    (more…)

  • Long feared and almost universally reviled, rats have been linked with a multitude of awe-inspiring feats, including wiping out millions of humans through three global pandemics. (Although a recent study exonerated rats for spreading the bubonic plague that devastated Europe in the 14th century. Gerbils are now taking the fall for that one.)

    Now there is video footage demonstrating how rats swim up sewer pipes and into toilets.

    See The Sydney Morning Herald and National Geographic

  • Denise Diering didn’t expect to see a big black bear standing at the edge of her swimming pool when she looked out the back door of her North Vancouver home late on Monday afternoon.

    She told CBC News she shouted to her husband, Tony Diering, who was nearby, to “Close the door!”

    When she looked back, the bear slid into the pool, then climbed into the adjoining hot tub for a quick soak.

    See CBC and CTV