When adventurer Ben Hooper was five, he drowned in a Belgian swimming pool. This experience alone may excusably put off many from ever going near water again.
But the father of one from Cheltenham is one of the few, rather than the many.
The unassuming former police officer, 36, went to the entirely opposite end of the spectrum.
Instead of shying away from water, he is going to attempt to swim 2,000 miles across the Atlantic Ocean.
Read Gloucestershire Echo
https://youtu.be/1y50j5AwgD0
The sports minister Tracey Crouch has promised to deliver a new strategy for sport “as a matter of urgency†following a decline in participation.
New figures published by Sport England have shown that the number of people playing sport has fallen, with swimming the most badly affected.
Swimming is the country’s most popular sport with more than 2.5m people taking part weekly, but 144,200 fewer have taken to the pool in the last six months and 390,700 in the last year.
Overall the statistics, which cover the period from October 2014 to March 2015, show that 15.5m people participated in some kind of sport once a week, every week – a figure 222,000 fewer than six months ago.
Read The Guardian
Photo by Katelyn Fay 
In the Athletes Village in Baku athletes from Russia and Ukraine had a fight, reports our source in the Athletes Village of the European Games.
According to the information, there was a verbal sparring between a group of Russian and Ukrainian athletes.
Athletes could not hold back emotions and met in melee. Staff of the Olympic Village separated the fighters.
Read Azeri Daily
Photo by Kudosmedia
Three 15-year-old Austrian synchronised swimmers were hurt in a collision with a bus while walking in the athletes’ village at the European Games in Baku.
The Austrian Olympic Committee (AOC) said Vanessa Sahinovic was “severely injured” and would be flown to Vienna for further treatment.
Luna Pajer will also be flown back to the Austrian capital after suffering injuries to her arms.
Verena Breit bruised her right thigh and has returned to the village.
The AOC said the collision happened at 08:30 local time on Thursday, when the athletes were walking on the pavement in the Olympic village.
AOC chief medical officer Dr Alfred Engel said Sahinovic had suffered a polytrauma and multiple fractures.
He added Payer’s arm injuries “need further medical clarification”.
Read BBC
There is a video here on YouTube that seems to be from the incident. Warning, very graphic !
https://youtu.be/Koap1jDCw5s
Photo by Kudosmedia
Waterproof Jacksonville is expanding it’s reach once again this year in order to teach more kids to swim and be safe in the water.
With two children lost in one day from drowning. We learned one of them was a 7-year-old child on the autism spectrum.
He’s known as the “Pinoy Aquaman” and now this Filipino triathlete has taken on a new challenge — the Great Chesapeake Bay Swim. Don Tagala tells us about the latest adventure of Ingemar Macarine.
A 20-year-old woman is alive Wednesday night after a dramatic rescue at a popular Minneapolis beach.
The woman and a 17-year-old girl were trying to swim to a floating dock on Lake Harriet just before 5 p.m. Both went underwater, and the teenager made it safely back to shore — but the woman never resurfaced.
“For the first couple of minutes it was scary stuff,†Zachary Beckman said.
See CBS Minnesota
A 17-year-old Missouri star athlete died of an apparent heart attack while racing her friends in a swimming pool, her devastated mother said.
Emma Aronson, an incoming senior at Lee’s Summit High School, passed away last Friday when her heart stopped during a playful swimming competition with pals at the neighborhood pool.
“She was racing in the pool against the boys and of course, she wanted to beat them. And most of the time she did,” mom Laura Aronson told reporters.
“She got to the edge and said, in a very small voice, ‘I’m so tired,’ and then that was it.”
See NY Daily News
