Swimmer's Daily

  • China’s controversial swimming superstar Sun Yang has taken a potshot at rival Japan’s national anthem at the Asian Games, describing it as “ugly”.

    The double Olympic champion told Chinese media he had taken great pleasure in helping the men’s 4×100 freestyle relay team beat the Japanese on Wednesday. He then indulged in a spot of diplomatic jousting.

    “The Chinese let their anger out tonight,” he is heard as saying on a Chinese-language audio passed to AFP.

    “Honestly speaking the Japanese national anthem sounds ugly.”

    Read NDTV

  • Neighborhood children are petitioning against Highland Park Independent School District’s $15-$20 million plan to build a new swim center at Curtis Park. The park is considered the summer aquatic, social and recreational hub of University Park.

    “We think we should have a say in our community,” one child told CBS 11 News about their petition, which has 500 signatures.

    Many neighbors stand in opposition with the children against building the center across from University Park Elementary School.

    “I do not support the location of the natatorium,” said one University Park resident, many of who lined up to speak at City Hall. The adults have also started another petition online.

    “We don’t think it’s unnecessary to cut down healthy trees that predate the founding of University Park,” said another resident.

    See CBS Local and Save Curtis Park

  • A Frankfort couple have charged in a Fayette Circuit Court lawsuit that negligence by Transylvania University led to the drowning of their 13-year-old son in a university swimming pool in June.

    The suit was filed Monday by Ricky L. and Jessica A. Harris, whose son, Ricky Harris III,died June 23 after losing consciousness during a recreational swim at Transy’s William T. Young Campus Center. He was attending an academic summer camp at Transy.

    The lawsuit alleges that because of a “culture of disregard as to swimming pool safety” at Transy, Ricky Harris sank under the water without being noticed, remaining underwater “for an extended period of time” before being found.

  • New underwater footage posted online Friday is believed to be the world’s first video showing a pod of killer whales hunting and killing a tiger shark.

    According to Barcroft TV, the video was captured off the coast of Costa Rica by photographer Caroline Power on September 8th.

    See The Blaze

    http://youtu.be/uqimOYOQjJ8

  • At the AIDA team world championships in Sardinia, Italy, on Friday the 26th of september 2014, Natalia Molchanova from Russia broke the world record dynamic with a dive of 237 meters.
    Camera Daan Verhoeven http://daanverhoeven.com

  • A Japanese swimmer has been kicked out of the Asian Games and will have to pay his own way back home after being charged by police for stealing a camera from a South Korean journalist.

    Naoya Tomita, a gold medallist from Guangzhou in 2010 but outside the medals in Incheon, had been captured by video surveillance putting the 8 million won ($7,600) camera into his bag at the Games swimming venue on Friday.

    Japan delegation chief Tsuyoshi Aoki apologised for Tomita’s behaviour on behalf of the team at a news conference on Saturday.

    Incheon police told Reuters the athlete had been booked without detention and barred from leaving the country.

    “After we received a report, we analysed CCTV and could see that it was a Japanese athlete, but to confirm it we went to see the Japanese team leader and showed him the clip,” police told Reuters by telephone.

    Police located the athlete cheering on his team mates and spoke to him in a private interview.

    “He admitted it right away,” police said. “The case will be dealt with by the prosecutor’s office next week.”

    Japanese Olympic Committee official Naoya Yanagiya said Tomita had been expelled from the team and would have to pay his own way back to Japan.

    “His name has been stricken from Japan’s team and once the decision is made in the investigation, we will take the next step,” Kyodo news quoted Yanagiya as saying.

    Read for instance Reuters and Japan Times

  • A Swedish lady struggling with keeping her husband in frame.

    Apparently, it is a thing ! :-)

    http://youtu.be/XS1lCbbtVu8

    http://youtu.be/pqF1mu3MApE

  • Hong Kong will welcome the international swimming elite for the third leg of the FINA/MASTBANK Swimming World Cup 2014 from September 29-30. Hong Kong, together with Moscow (RUS, October 4-5), constitute the second cluster of the Series.

    A total USD 300’000 is on offer for cluster no.2 and will be distributed to the six highest-ranked swimmers among men and women (USD 150’000 for each category), as well as for cluster no.3 (Beijing, Tokyo and Singapore). At the end of the Series, the men’s and women’s World Cup winner will receive USD 100’000 in prize money, the second-placed USD 50’000 and third-placed USD 30’000.

    Among men, Olympic champion Chad Le Clos (RSA) currently leads the overall rankings with 120 points, closely followed by Hungary’s Daniel Gyurta (116 points). Australian Thomas Fraser-Holmes completes the top-3 with 93 points.

    Two-time World Cup winner Katinka Hosszu (HUN) tops the women’s general standings with an outstanding 355 points. Dutch Inge Dekker is runner-up with 126 points while Alia Atkinson of Jamaica is third with 87 points.

    A total six World and 10 World Cup records have been set in this year’s Series so far.

    The FINA/MASTBANK Swimming World Cup can be followed through live streaming of finals on FINAtv and a live info feed at www.fina.org.

    Full calendar of FINA Swimming World Cup 2014:

    Cluster no.1:
    August 27-28, Doha (QAT)
    August 31 – September 1, Dubai (UAE)

    Cluster no.2:
    September 29-30, Hong Kong (HKG)
    October 4-5, Moscow (RUS)

    Cluster no.3:
    October 24-25, Beijing (CHN)
    October 28-29, Tokyo (JPN)
    November 1-2, Singapore (SIN)

    Press release from FINA

    Hot Links

    – News
    – Results
    – Media Book

    Image courtesy of deepbluemedia.eu

  • Why take a risk at 60?

    At this ripe age, Barney Heller decided he wanted to honor his late friend Doug by doing something extraordinary. Attempt an 11-mile open water swim from Spain to Morocco.

    Barney Heller has been swimming all of his life. It’s the only sport he was ever good at. On the swim team at Bucknell University, he met his friend and fellow swimmer, Doug Drayton. When Barney learned two years ago that Doug died from a rare disease called Frontotemporal Degeneration, it shook him to his core. Barney thought he would honor him the only way he knew how – swimming.

    Greg Heller, his son and a documentary filmmaker, learned of this and decided to start capturing his father’s training. “It’s a rare thing for a 60 year old to take a risk,” Greg says.  “And to do it for someone else, was honestly a bit out of character for my dad. I wanted to capture the changes he was going through as he faced aging, grieving, and attempting the hardest swim of his life.”

    The documentary, Swimming the Strait, is currently in post production, and set to be finished in 2015. Visit the Swimming the Strait website, Facebook, and Twitter page to learn more and stay updated.