Swimmer's Daily

  • Mystery still surrounds the coaching debacle hovering over top Olympic swimming medal hope Lauren Boyle.

    After calls for government intervention around Boyle’s situation – she has spent six months now without a coach – it is understood Associate Minister of Sport Murray McCully visited the Millennium Institute of Sport, site of High Performance Sport New Zealand’s headquarters, on Friday.

    HPSNZ refuses to say whether Crown employees met McCully and discussed the Boyle situation.

    Three weeks ago FairfaxNZ revealed elite sport bosses have spent six months trying – and failing – to find a coach for world and Commonwealth swimming champion Boyle. HPSNZ chief executive Alex Baumann admitted an Olympic medal could be at stake but denied there was a need for ministerial intervention.

    Already a “disappointed” Boyle has opted out of defending her 800m world short-course title, citing inadequate preparation.

    Read stuff.co.nz

  • Don’t ask

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  • Hannah Miley, the two-time Olympian, is turning down tomorrow’s season’s glitzy BBC party in Glasgow to put on a show of her own in the Scottish capital at the Scottish Gas National Short Course Championships.

    The 25-year-old multiple Commonwealth champion was among several Scottish swimmers invited to the Sports Personality of the Year production at Pacific Quay, but explained that her priorities were dictated by a combination of her own schedule and a sense of duty to spectators at the Commonwealth Pool.

    “I can’t go because the 400 IM, 200 breaststroke and 200 free are on the last night and they’re finals I can’t really miss,” she said, after adding another two Scottish titles to her long list of achievements on the opening day of the event.

    “I’ve not really been able to do a lot of evenings and award ceremonies because for me it’s all about the long-term gain and for me the focus is on making that team in the summer, so if that means I can’t do a night out and get glammed up then so be it.

    Read Herald Scotland

  • Short-course 1500m world champion Spain’s Mireia Belmonte broke the discipline world record by almost three seconds at her national swimming championships on Friday.

    The new mark of 15 minutes 19.71 seconds, set during the Spanish short-course championships at Sabadell, takes over from New Zealander Lauren Boyle’s previous world record mark of 15min 22.68sec.

    Belmonte won four titles at the recent Doha 2014 short-course worlds with gold in the 200m butterfly, 400m medley (where she won both in world record times) and also the 400m and 800m freestyle.

    Read SBS

  • Two scientists have broken the record for the longest time spent living underwater, as of 11:28 a.m. EST today.

    The biologists, Bruce Cantrell and Jessica Fain, have spent nearly 10 weeks in Jules’ Undersea Lodge, which bills itself as “the only undersea hotel on Earth” and is located just off the coast of Key Largo, Florida. …

    Cantrell and Fain, respectively a biology professor and biology instructor at Roane State Community College in eastern Tennessee, decided to live underwater to learn more about marine biology and educate students about the ocean. They’ve hosted a series of weekly educational videos, all available on YouTube, about their time living underwater, which they’ve dubbed Classroom Under the Sea.

    The videos are aimed at teachers and students from middle school and older. The trip was funded by the college and other groups, and its official sponsor is Diversity in Aquatics, an organization devoted to “decreasing the rate of drowning deaths worldwide” and teaching people about water safety.

  • The 2014 Nordic Swim Champs have just started in Upplands Väsby near Stockholm in Sweden, with start lists here, live video streaming here on livetiming.se, live results here and listed results here. See also the event landing page here.

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  • Ocean Gravity is a short film that rewrite the rules of the underwater world and takes us this time into the world of the weightlessness.

  • World (25m) Champion & two-time European 1500m Freestyle Champion, Gregorio Paltrinieri puts the new arena Cobra Ultra goggles through their paces.

  • Chinese swimming star Sun Yang’s Australian coach said he felt sorry for the double Olympic champion after it emerged he had served a doping ban, telling media Thursday the athlete was “let down”.

    Denis Cotterell made his comments after Australian swimming authorities barred the 1,500 metres world record-holder from training in the country’s pools in the wake of the high-profile drugs case.

    Sun served a three-month penalty after testing positive for the banned stimulant trimetazidine in May. He completed his ban on August 17, but it was only revealed by Chinese authorities last month.

    Cotterell told Chinese state news agency Xinhua that he was disappointed for Sun and that he “feel(s) for him personally”.

    “His situation is most unfortunate, and I definitely don’t hold him to any blame,” he said.

    “While only knowing the circumstances as outlined in the various press and media outlets, I feel he’s been let down.”

    Read SBS