Swimmer's Daily

  • Chad le Clos, one of the few men to have beaten Michael Phelps at the Olympics, has thrown down the challenge to his old rival, urging him to get back into training so they can have a rematch at Rio in 2016. […]

    “I really, really hope that he and his team decide to swim in Rio, I really believe it will be great,” Le Clos told Reuters on Friday.

    “It’s added motivation for me… with Michael back, it’s really sparked my fire, so to speak.” […]

    “I believe by Rio, I should be in peak condition,” said Le Clos, currently in Singapore for the final round of swimming’s annual World Cup series.

    “I don’t think he will be worse in Rio, I think he’ll be back where he wants to be.

    “He’s a champion in all respects but I believe I can beat him again.”

    Read Reuters

  • The selfie trend has been embraced by everyone from astronauts and fighter pilots to world leaders and the Pope.

    But Dutch conservation photographer Peter Verhoog decided to go one step further – by posing for a personal shot with a passing great white shark.

    The 59-year-old, a director of the Dutch Shark Society, leaned out of the divers’ cage to capture these spectacular frames off the coast of Guadeloupe, Mexico. […]

    Peter, who shot the startling selfies in September, said: “I began making selfies with all kinds of sharks – mostly for fun.

    “Only later I realized that they could show people what sharks are like – when behaving normally, there is no danger.

    “People are not a prey for great white sharks – they feed on fish and marine mammals like seals.

    “Furthermore, they are careful predators, and sometimes examine people by bumping into them, or taking a bite – the famous ‘mistaken identity’.

    “Then they let go – we are just not as fat and nourishing as a seal is. But a bite can be fatal.

    “We are not on the menu, but we can be in the way.”

    See The Telegraph

    http://youtu.be/uZkUiOnFipQ

  • YouTube star Jerome Jarre (previously) staged a silly prank in which he changed into a Speedo and inflatable turtle pool toy on a flight from Mexico to Miami. In a video that also shows the prank itself, Jarre says he was escorted from the plane by police and interrogated by the FBI who told him, “This is the silliest thing I’ve had to work on in my entire career.”

    See Laughing Squid

    http://youtu.be/uHa9S9GVkdA

  • Pakistan’s Anum Bandey competed in the London 2012 Olympic Games swimming in the Women’s 400m Individual Medley. Making her first Olympic appearance, aged just 15, she broke the Pakistan national record.

  • If you’ve ever used an underwater housing, you know what it feels like to dunk your several thousand dollar DSLR underwater for the very first time. You know it’s safe, you double checked everything, you probably already tested the seals, but the moment of truth still frays your nerves.

    Imagine, then, how filmmaker Chris Bryan felt when he put his $50K Phantom Flex, $45K Phantom Miro M-320S, and $140K Phantom 4K Flex inside his own custom-built underwater housings and took them out into the waves for the first time?

    See PetaPixel

  • The southern Alberta community of Vauxhall, is a small farming town that is missing one thing most municipalities boast as a great way to encourage affordable and fun physical activity. It’s known as the ‘Potato Capital of the West” and is located 90 km northeast of Lethbridge and is home to 1200 residents. Some could argue there’s not much in the way of things to do in the area and the lack of a swimming pool hasn’t helped. The town lost its only pool two years ago.

    “It needs to be redone. It’s leaking so bad that it does not hold enough water,” said local resident Dorthea Mills.

    See Global News

  • Could lifeguard drones become a safety standard in the future?

    This innovative technology started generating buzz in 2013 when creator Amin Rigi of RTS Labs in Iran gave a public demonstration of the product.

    It is now being developed at RTS London and the company says it is ready to start mass producing the drones.

    See The Weather Network

  • After three surfers died in a rip current in Cornwall, the Royal National Lifeboat Institution has advice on what to do if you encounter one.

    You can spot a rip current by looking for a rippled patch of sea amid otherwise calm water. There might also be foam on the water’s surface, debris floating out to sea or discoloured, brown water caused by sand being stirred up from the seabed.

    “Rip currents sound complicated but they are essentially fast flowing bodies of water that can drag people and debris away from the shoreline,” said Greg Spray, RNLI lifeguard manager for Newquay and Padstow.

    “Rips can be very difficult to spot, but sometimes can be identified by a channel of churning, choppy water or debris on the sea’s surface. They can also form around permanent structures in the sea, like piers or sea walls. So please bear this in mind if you find yourself swimming close to these.”

    See Telegraph Travel

    Photo by Victoria Reay

  • A North Texas community is mourning the loss of a man many simply known as Coach Kyle.

    Kyle Tilley, 26, of Flower Mound was killed in a car crash over the weekend in The Colony.

    Trooper Lonny Haschel with the Texas Department of Public Safety says Tilley was traveling southbound on the Sam Rayburn Tollway Saturday at about 11:40 p.m. when the wreck occurred just south of the Josey Lane overpass.

    According to investigators, another car was traveling in the center lane at a high rate of speed when it crossed into Tilley’s lane, striking the back of his Jeep, and sending it rolling to a stop in the grass median.

    Tilley was pronounced dead on the scene and his passenger, 25-year-old Nicholas Bass of Coppell, was airlifted to the Medical Center of Plano with serious injuries.

    Haschel said the other vehicle, driven by 19-year-old Wahid Malik of Carrollton, also came to rest in the median and caught fire, but the driver and passenger were not seriously injured.

    Preliminary reports show all involved were wearing their seatbelts, but Haschel said it could take time to figure out what the cause of the crash was.

    See NBCDFW

    And CBS Dallas