Swimmer's Daily

  • Grant Hackett missed out on a medal in the 200 metres freestyle final at the Australian swimming championships in Sydney on Sunday night, but his swim felt as good as a win for the Queenslander with his fourth place and time assuring he will go to the world championships.

    The former two times Olympic champion’s fourth place time of 1 minute 46.84 seconds in the event won by Cameron McEvoy of Queensland qualifies him for one of six places Swimming Australia can select for the 4x200m relay squad for the world titles at Kazan in Russia in August.

    In one of the strongest fields assembled for a 200m final, Hackett, racing in lane three in the Sydney Olympic Aquatic Centre at Homebush, was in fifth place after 50 metres, then fourth at 100 metres and dropped to sixth at 150 metres before finishing strongly in fourth place.

    The race was won by McEvoy, the defending champion from Queensland in 1:45.94. In second place was David McKeon, also of Queensland, in 1:46.33, while another Queenslander Thomas Fraser-Holmes was third in 1:46.83. Hackett’s training partner Daniel Smith finished fifth in 1:47.27.

    It was a race of remarkable feats, especially by Hackett, considering he only resumed training from a six year spell from swimming six months ago.

    Asked how making the Australian team felt compared to winning an Olympic gold, Hackett said: “In many ways it’s a different sort of achievement.

    “If you asked me 10 years ago [about] making a relay team and that being the only thing I was on the team for that would be bitter disappointment.

    “But now it’s like one of the biggest achievements of my life to make that team after such a long amount of time off – and in only such a short preparation.

    Read The Sydney Morning Herald

  • Swimmers, especially endurance swimmers, are more likely than other water sport competitors to have asthma, according to a new study of Olympic athletes.

    Researchers found that about a quarter of competitors in swimming events had verified asthma, although it was more common among athletes from some parts of the world than others.

    The intensity of swimmer training, or long hours spent in the water, may expose swimmers to more chlorine byproducts compared to divers or other athletes who spend less time breathing just at the water’s surface, experts said.

    A long-term study would help distinguish “between athletes with asthma who self-select to swimming and those who have asthma as a result of exposure to endurance training practices,” said lead author Dr. Margo Mountjoy of McMaster University Waterloo campus in Ontario, Canada. […]

    “I was not surprised to find that swimmers had a high prevalence of asthma,” Mountjoy told Reuters Health by email. “What was surprising for me to find was that there were significant differences between the endurance and non-endurance sports, as well as the distinct geographical distributions.”

    More athletes from Oceania, Europe and North America had asthma than those from Asia, Africa and South America, the authors found.

    “It was also interesting to find that although asthma is more prevalent in women than in men in the general population, this gender difference was not evident in the elite aquatic population,” Mountjoy said.

    Read Huffington Post

    Photo by nist6ss

  • Australian veterans Christian Sprenger and Alicia Coutts may both retire after the Olympic medallists failed to make the Dolphins team last night in their pet events.

    Coutts wanted to retire 12 weeks ago due to a persistent shoulder injury that requires surgery while Sprenger has battled back off just six weeks training following shoulder surgery last year to narrowly miss the gold medal at the selection trials.

    Coutts has a 100m freestyle event which may yet save her spot on the swim team, but for breaststroke star Sprenger his only hope is a discretionary selection for the world titles team bound for Kazan.

    Read The Courier Mail

  • A free diver has been attacked by a shark off Florida’s Jupiter Inlet before being airlifted to medical facilities upon reaching shore.

    According to WPBF, rescue crews were dispatched around 1 p.m., following reports that a man who had been attacked by a shark was being brought to shore. The attack took place several miles from the coast and the victim, who has yet to be named, was transported to Jupiter Inlet Park by boat. After being evaluated, the man, who appeared to be in his 60s or 70s according to WPTV, was airlifted to St. Mary’s Medical Center. He was communicating with first responders, according to eyewitnesses, and appeared to still be wearing his wetsuit.

    Read Iquisitr

  • Highlights from Day 1 of the 2015 Hancock Prospecting Australian Swimming Championships.

  • In Australia, swimming never means indoor pools and the smell of chlorinated water. See how folks from 8 to 80 head into water for the Cole Classic Ocean Swim despite the complex currents or even dangerous sea creatures!

    Courtesy of New China TV on YouTube

  • You may not have heard of Adam Walker, but he’s about to make you feel very lazy. A few years ago, Walker was a kettle and toaster salesman who’d given up various sports he loved doing because of injury.

    Today, he’s one of only six people to have ever completed the Ocean’s Seven challenge: seven of the most hardcore open water swims in the world.

    The man’s got some stories to tell, and we wanted to hear them. So as he prepared to MC the Red Bull Neptune Steps event in Glasgow last weekend, we caught up with him to hear about his seven wildest encounters with the sea.

    See redbull.com

  • See event landing page

  • A new swimming pool in the heart of London is going to be no crystal-clear oasis or aquamarine infinity pool. It’s a pond, full of plants, probably some toads, maybe the occasional newt. And it looks amazing.

    See Quartz

    https://vimeo.com/106807452