Swimmer's Daily

  • So Saturday I visited the competition venue for the first time, and then attended the team leader’s meeting as representative of the Faroe Islands.

  • With their friendly faces and playful natures, it may seem that wild dolphins are always friendly.

    But a bottlenose dolphin has been reported to have deliberately pushed a man underwater while he was swimming in the sea off County Cork, in the Republic of Ireland.

    The animal is said to have ‘lashed out’ at the swimmer twice with its tail, prompting experts to warn swimmers to keep out of the water near the large predators.

    The incident occurred on July 26 off Sherkin Ireland, according to a report made to the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group (IWDG) which stated that the animal acted ‘aggressively’. […]

    ‘Do not confuse the shape of their jawline with a smile. They can and do cause serious injury to humans and have killed in the past.’

    It is not known exactly why dolphins attack humans or large animals like porpoises as, unlike sharks, they do not eat their victim.

    An expert from the IWDG told BBC News that it is impossible to known if the dolphin was deliberately attacking the man, or if it was trying to play with him.

    Dolphins often engage in rough play, holding each other down and giving chase, so it is possible that the dolphin was playing, but some dolphin experts claim that the creatures sometimes attack humans when they are feeling amorous.

    Bottlenose dolphins can display violent mating practices where they act in groups to chase and mate with a female of their own species over weeks, whether she is interested or not.

    Male dolphins are also known to fight and kill rivals and offspring, suggesting they could also turn on humans mistakenly.

    Read MailOnline

    Photo by Just Taken Pics

  • Endurance swimmer Lewis Pugh has completed the first of seven swims in the Seven Seas to highlight the need for protected areas in oceans around the world.

    The Devon-based swimmer will be the first to undertake a long-distance swim in each of the classical Seven Seas: the Mediterranean, Adriatic, Aegean, Black Sea, Red Sea, Arabian Sea and the North Sea, ending with a 62-mile (100km) swim up the Thames to Parliament.

    Read Western Morning News

  • The Dutch made it three, the Russians earned the first two

    The Dutch swimmers proved they were the ruling nation of the open water events at this year’s European Championships in Berlin by winning the team competition. The Russians also started to collect their gold medals in synchro: they got the respective titles in duet and in team.

    With two freshly crowned European champions in their line-up, the Netherlands started the 5km team event as the overwhelming favourites in Grünau: 10km gold medallists Sharon van Rouwendaal and Ferry Weertman were both at the start of the race, together with Marcel Shouten. However, the Greeks, the Germans, the Hungarians and the Italians all sent their best ones to the Long Lake to battle for the medals in the time trial.

    The regatta course showed a bit darker face this time with the air being a bit cooler than the water. All teams applied the two men-one woman format – which is not always the case in this event – and the splits after 2500m promised a thrilling end as the third member of the Dutch, the Greek and the German team crossed the line inside a 3-second gap.

    But the Dutch, already in the lead, managed to increase their speed and after clocking 27:59.9min in the first lap came home in 27:47.9, quite a devastating effort -which earned them a 17.7 advantage over the Greeks. Giannotis & Co. had an excellent race with two equally fine laps (28:01.8 and 28:03.7) and clinched the silver medal.

    The battle for the bronze turned out to be a really close call: the Germans slowed down in the second part while the Hungarians produced the second-best split of the entire race (27:58.5) and almost caught the hosts but at last they were 1.2sec shy of reaching the podium.

    In synchro the Russians did their job again. In the duet competition new pairs competed for the medals to bring some freshness to the pool. Daria Korobova and Svetlana Kolesnichenko did a great job, earned a couple of 9.9s for their free routine and won with a comfortable margin (6.1908 points). The Ukrainians managed to get ahead of the Spaniards for the first time: Lolita Ananasova and Anna Voloshyna were slightly better than the new line-up of Ona Carbonell and Paula Klamburg.

    Press release from LEN

    Images courtesy of deepbluemedia.eu

  • So I went to town, needing a thing or two for my camera. Jumped off the tram at Alexander Platz and walked to Potsdamer Platz via the Reichstag, and then back partly along the traces of the former Wall to the hotel at Landsberger Allé.

    It was a long walk.

  • The tourist was splashing around off the coast of Mexico’s Playa del Carmen when the deadly beast gave chase.

    Heart-stopping footage shows the man frantically trying to reach the shore as the predator moves in. […]

    Manuel Carrera captured the astonishing incident on camera and uploaded it to Facebook.

    See for instance NY Daily News

  • Ukraine nearing first ever synchro gold

    The only calmer day of the European Championships with no medals awarded, still,beautiful synchro events were held in the famous Schwimm- und Sprunghalle in Berlin.

    With a rest day held at the open water events, the eyes turned to the synchro competitions where some magnificent performances entertained the crowd in the morning session and during the evening as well.

    The solo free preliminaries saw another great show from Svetlana Romashina: the new Russian queen in synchro came up with her best again. As she was freed from the duet duties for this season, she had more time to focus on her solo routines. This is clearly visible in the results: before the final she already gained an almost 5-point lead over Ona Carbonell of Spain.

    As of today this is the only event where the Spaniards wait the final ranked ahead of the Ukrainians (Anna Voloshyna is sitting third in solo) as their rivals also got more points in the free combination prelims. In this event they eventually battle for the title as the Russians stayed away. Again, the gap between them is tiny, just 1.1334 points, but the Ukrainians gained on them in all three categories (execution, impression and elements) and now they are nearing to earn their first European gold medal ever in synchro. Here Italy is a close third, well ahead of the Greeks.

    Just as in the other two events – in duet and in team – great finals are in sight on Sunday.Tomorrow the first medals in synchro will be awarded while in open water the team event is up next.

    Images courtesy of deepbluemedia.eu

  • The most decorated Olympian of all time reflects on his winless run since coming out of retirement in April. Michael Phelps says his lacklustre performance at the US national championships served as a good learning experience. ‘I am doing it for myself, and I am going to have to work because I want to,’ he says.

    See The Guardian

    http://youtu.be/VBeanLwvi48

  • A shark sighting was confirmed in the water off Manhattan Beach pier on Thursday, about a month after a man swimming in the same area was left injured when a shark bit him. […]

    A Baywatch Redondo personal watercraft investigated and confirmed the sighting to be a juvenile white shark that was 7 feet long, another Lifeguard Division tweet stated.

    The shark was monitored for 45 minutes and determined not to be aggressive or a threat, so no advisories to the public were made, according to the division.

    Such sightings are common, the division said.

    Post by FB Newswire.

    See KTLA