Swimmer's Daily

  • Our Lucky Puppies Delight in Swimming Pool Pawty

  • Italian explorer Alex Bellini has conceived an extraordinary plan to live alone on a drifting iceberg in northwest Greenland for up to a year, or until it melts away – whichever happens first. He aims to stay alive during this time in a tiny survival pod, and hopes his experience will encourage further discourse on climate change and the environment in general.

    Read Gizmag

  • At the FINA/Mastbank Swimming World Cup leg in Doha tonight, Hungary’s “Iron Lady” clipped the short course world record, clocking 4:20.83 in the 400 meters individual medley where her own world record from the Berlin leg of the 2013 World Cup series was 2:20.85. In the 100 meter IM later in the session, she was close to breaking the world record again, clocking 57.34 where her world record from this morning is 57.25. See the result list here

    Image courtesy of Doha Stadium Plus Qatar, CC BY 2.0

  • California Polytechnic State University student Christian Yellott recently captured some first-personGoPro footage of a fast jet ski trip through Mountain Sheep Canyon on Lake Powell in Arizona that bears more than a passing resemblance to a video game.

    Via Laughing Squid

  • Goliath grouper eating a black tip shark in one bite off the coast of Bonita Springs Florida. August 2014.

    Courtesy of Gimbb14 on YouTube

  • Duke Kahanamoku, who won a total of five swimming medals in Olympics from 1912 to 1924, probably did more than anyone else to bring the sport of surfing from his native Hawaiian islands to the United States mainland. Almost in reverse, he also played a substantial part in the Americanization of old Hawaii.

    Born in Honolulu in 1890, descended from patrician ancestors who counseled the Hawaiian monarchy, he grew up near Waikiki Beach as the son of a police captain. Duke was a child when Queen Liliuokalani was thrown under house arrest and Hawaii transformed, by aid of the United States Marines, into Uncle Sam’s territory.

    With no outward hint of resentment toward those who had seized and subjugated his country, Duke sought and won a place on the American swimming team at the 1912 Olympics in Stockholm, the only Hawaiian present. The Philadelphia Inquirer sportswriter Edgar Forrest Wolfe (who used the pen name Jim Nasium) pronounced Kahanamoku in 1913 “a human fish” and “the greatest swimmer the world of sport has ever seen.”

    Read The New York Times

  • In 2012, Michael Phelps saw the writing on London’s Aquatic Centre scoreboard. In the third of four preliminary heats of the Olympic 400-meter individual medley, the Japanese teenager Kosuke Hagino clocked at 4 minutes 10.01 seconds.

    Phelps, the world-record holder in the event since 2002, remembered cringing, because he was in the final heat and Hagino’s time was faster than he had expected to have to push himself.

    In the Olympic final, Hagino pushed Phelps off the medals podium and toward retirement when he edged him for the bronze. A year later, Hagino competed in six individual events and one relay at the world championships in Barcelona, Spain, and collected two seconds, three fifths and a seventh.

    Read The New York Times

  • At the FINA/Mastbank Swimming World Cup leg in Doha this morning, Hungary’s Katinka Hosszu set a new short course world record, clocking 57.25 in the 100 individual medley where here own world record from the World Cup leg in Berlin last year was 57.45. This during prelims, with the final coming up later today. See the result list here.

    Image courtesy of Doha Stadium Plus Qatar, CC BY 2.0

  • A team of swimmers attempting a 76-mile relay swim from Catalina Island to La Jolla Cove in support of wounded veterans abandoned the swim after multiple shark encounters, organizers said Sunday.

    The group of eight swimmers, three kayakers and a support boat left the city of Avalon on Catalina Island about 4:10 p.m. Friday and planned to arrive at La Jolla Cove sometime this morning, group organizer Will Miller said.

    But the group abandoned the swim for precautionary reasons Saturday after swimming 44 miles because of multiple encounters with sharks, Miller said. One shark followed about 20 feet behind a swimmer at one point and the group spotted a total of eight sharks nearby. They were about 20 miles offshore from Camp Pendleton when they decided to stop.

    “After 44 miles, safety takes precedent over ego and wanting to finish,” Miller said. “At night it was pitch black, and our concern was we would never see the shark at night until it was too late.”

    Read Times of San Diego

    Photo by USFWS Headquarters