Swimmer's Daily

  • Swimming Australia should never have put coach Scott Volkers in charge of the national women’s team, a royal commission has been advised.

    The child sex abuse inquiry has also been advised by its chief counsel to find the swimming body did not follow its own mandatory screening policy by not asking Volkers about his suitability to work with children.

    Counsel assisting Gail Furness said that before employing Volkers as head coach, Swimming Australia knew he was the subject of sex abuse allegations from three former students in the 1980s.

    But the body did not know and did not take steps to find out the details of those allegations, Ms Furness said in her submission, which was released on Friday.

    “Swimming Australia should have carried out its own internal investigation into the allegations against Mr Volkers, applying the balance of probabilities as the standard of proof, prior to employing him as national women’s head coach,” Ms Furness said.

    “In the circumstances, Swimming Australia should not have employed Mr Volkers as national women’s head.”

    Read 9NEWS

    http://youtu.be/bi2qqNFJDIs

    See also 7NEWS

  • A Japanese swimmer accused of stealing a camera during the Asian Games in South Korea in September denied the allegations on Thursday, saying an unidentified male forcefully put it in his bag.

    Naoya Tomita, 25, was expelled from Japan’s swimming team on Sept. 27 following investigations over a missing camera at the Incheon games. He paid a fine of one million won ($923) to resolve the case after being indicted by South Korean authorities.

    Mr. Tomita said he admitted the theft to the South Korean police, but he described that as a false confession stemming from fears that the investigation would be prolonged and he wouldn’t be able to return to Japan.

    “I did not steal the camera,” the swimmer said at a news conference in Nagoya on Thursday. “I should have kept a strong will and told them that I didn’t do it, but I was weak,” he said. “I apologize for causing all the trouble.”

    Read The Wall Street Journal

  • Jaring Timmerman passed away in hospital early Wednesday morning.

    The Winnipeg man swam his way into the record books as the world’s oldest master swimmer.

    His son Don Timmerman said his father was admitted to hospital Monday after he started feeling ill.

    He said he wants his dad remembered as an inspiration.

    “I guess you know his determination and his inspiration to so many people,” said Timmerman. “One of the things that really stood out in our minds is the swimming heat on January twenty-fourth when he set two world records.”

    Timmerman admits the swimming started taking a toll on his father’s health last January.

    But, he said, his dad had no regrets about that, because of his love of swimming.

    Read CBC News

    Read his obiturary here on The Globe and Mail

    In his long, industrious life, Jaring Timmerman was a Royal Canadian Air Force veteran, a dedicated member of the Salvation Army and an insurance executive. He witnessed two world wars and the rise and fall of nazism and communism.

    But it was as a centenarian athlete that Mr. Timmerman gained fame. In the last three decades of his life, the Winnipeg resident won more than 160 swimming medals and set six world records.

    Mr. Timmerman died on Wednesday at Grace Hospital in Winnipeg. He was 105. “[His] heart stopped beating, and his marvellous life on this earth ended,” his family said in a death notice e-mailed to The Globe and Mail.

  • Gymnastics legend Larisa Latynina upbraided her fellow record-breaking Olympian Michael Phelps after a drink-driving charge which saw him slapped with a six-month suspension from swimming.

    The 79-year-old Russian, whose record of 18 Olympic medals stood for 48 years until Phelps broke it in 2012, called Phelps “weak” for his arrest and subsequent suspension earlier this month.

    “I really regret this fact,” Latynina told reporters at the Association of National Olympic Committees (ANOC) awards show in Bangkok, where she won the prize for outstanding performance.

    “Besides that, I’m really disappointed that he, being an outstanding and talented athlete, allows himself to be so weak in front of such human factors,” she added, referring to the drink-driving charge.

    “He definitely could have avoided this.”

    Read iafrica

    Photo by Vironevaeh

  • The Stavanger Swim Hall in Norway will this weekend 7-9 November 2014 be venue of the 42nd North Sea Swim Meet, featuring the Danish ‘Viking’ team including Jeanette Ottesen and Rikke Møller Pedersen (DEN), Ari-Pekka Liukkonen (FIN), Pál Joensen (FAR), Marco Loughran (GBR), swimmers from Germany, Switzerland and Liechtenstein, and of course the best Norwegian swimmers also.

    nordsjostevnet

    See northseaswimmeet.com. The live stream is already underway here here on livestream, while start lists, results and live timing can be found here on livetiming

  • Presented by Arena, the exclusive outfitter of the USA Swimming National Team, “Being Frank” is a web series featuring the insights of USA Swimming National Team Director Frank Busch.

  • Campaigners have called on Ofsted to name and shame primary schools that fail to teach pupils to swim after figures showed almost half leave at 11 without being able to complete a length in the pool.

    Under the national curriculum, schools are required to teach pupils to swim confidently over a distance of at least 25 metres, use a range of strokes effectively and know how to safely rescue themselves if they get into difficulties.

    But the latest annual census by the Amateur Swimming Association shows that 45% of 11-year-olds leave for secondary school without being able to swim.

    While a modest improvement on the figure of 51% last year, which the ASA said was a “positive step forward”, it believes more rigorous assessment is required by Ofsted to encourage schools to meet the requirements.

    Read The Guardian

  • Two British tourists have died in Cyprus after one of them got into trouble in the sea and the other dived in to help.

    Police said Harry Bernard, 61, from London, jumped into the water in Paphos to help Christine Sugarhood, 66. After pulling her out and performing CPR, Mr Bernard suffered a suspected heart attack.

    According to local reports, Mrs Sugarhood, from Haywards Heath in West Sussex, may have gone into the water to help her husband Norman, who had got into difficulty in rough seas at about 5pm yesterday.

    Police say Mr Sugarhood made it back to shore, but his wife lost consciousness, at which point Mr Bernard jumped in. Paramedics pronounced him dead at the scene, and took Mrs Sugarhood to a private clinic where she was pronounced dead on arrival.

    Read London Evening Standard

  • The highlight of the aquatic season, the FINA World Swimming Championships (25m), is about to start in the magnificent Hamad Aquatic Complex. Featuring a handful of the greatest stars and offering a massive sum in prize money, the showcase in Doha is going to be another hit, watched by hundreds of millions around the world.

    FINA’s decision to move the event from its spring date to December proved to be a wise move. It attracts more top swimmers and it crowns the short-course season, while in the spring when everyone was preparing for the summer long-course events, it was like an unexpected guest at a party.

    Read more here on fina.org