Swimmer's Daily

  • No boats this year, but plenty of pallets

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  • A group of divers in Russia’s Far East decided to be the first to celebrate the coming of 2015 – by drinking champagne and swimming in circles around a New Year tree at the bottom of a nearly frozen bay.

    “The feeling is amazing, visibility is good, water temperature is about -1C. I think that in a day or so [the bay] will freeze over completely,” one of the divers told RT’s Ruptly agency.

    See RT

  • The creators of the QuadH2o quadcopter have developed a new drone designed to shoot video in the air as well as underwater.

    This quadcopter, called HexH2o, is designed with an epoxy fiber/carbon fiber body that is waterproof and can float, and is the Thailand-based company’s original creation, according to Gizmag. As a result, users can fly the drone out to anywhere in calm water, land it, record anything they see, and take off to another spot.

    Via HGNG

  • More people than ever have asked in the past week-plus, “Is the Alki Polar Bear Swim on for New Year’s Day?” Longtime organizer Mark Ufkes has just confirmed, yes, indeed, it is. Can it break last year’s record (~500 swimmers)? Why not!

    See West Seattle Blog

  • The following is one man’s experience, through two parallel stories.

    The first story is of a swimmer named Dillon Connolly, a record-setter at Sprayberry High School in Marietta and the University of Southern California. He qualified for Olympic trials and then decided to train professionally.

    Then in September, he had an accident.

    “I remember everything,” Connolly says. “I dove into a wall of sand, basically.”

    Connolly was surfing with friends this summer and crashed into a sandbar, fracturing vertebrae in his neck.

    “I was lying face down in the water floating there,” he said. “I couldn’t figure out how to move my body, and then I realized, ‘I actually don’t know how to move anything.’”

    He is currently pushing through therapy at Shepherd Center, accepting the unknown road ahead.

    “You took everything for granted,” said Connolly. “Like, I haven’t been able to scratch my face since the accident.”

    See 11alive.com

  • Lauren Boyle and Sophie Pascoe aside, it’s been another forgettable and concerning year for swimming in New Zealand.

    And, frustratingly, even Boyle’s year has been hampered.

    Last month it was revealed the Rio Olympic medal hope has been without a specialist coach for six months and taxpayer-funded entities Swimming New Zealand and High Performance Sport New Zealand are both still struggling to find a solution – for the most promising athlete the sport has seen in this country in years.

    Crowned the Commonwealth Games 400m freestyle champion, Boyle took herself to Spain in the run-up to Glasgow 2014 in order to prepare properly under world-renowned coach Fred Vergnoux.

    The lack of adequate coaching in New Zealand forced Boyle to surrender her world short course title this month without even mounting a challenge, something she was frustrated and disappointed by.

    Read stuff.co.nz

  • Wearing a wetsuit and towing a yellow raft, environmental educator Christopher Swain swam across the Hudson River on a gray and drizzly Wednesday to complete his trek of the 149-mile Mohawk River, the Hudson’s largest tributary.

    The 46-year-old Boston resident made the trip to raise awareness of the river’s history, habitats and environmental challenges, sharing the experience through social media.

    Swain started Oct. 20 in the shallow headwaters of the Mohawk in central New York, between the Tug Hill Plateau and western Adirondacks. He did the trip in segments, with the longest taking close to nine hours. He finished the last few hundred yards Wednesday morning with a media event in Troy where the Mohawk flows into the Hudson.

    He said he’s seen firsthand how settlement, growth, sprawl and industry have transformed the river, which has long been an important transportation route westward from the Hudson.

    “Everything we’ve done to rivers we’ve done to the Mohawk,” he said. “But it’s still an incredible river in many parts, with incredible natural beauty and some great habitats.”

    Read Lockport Journal

  • An estimated 400 hardy swimmers braved a freezing and drizzly morning to take part in the 44th Tenby Boxing Day Swim

    On the stroke of 11am before a crowd of thousands, the swimmers – many dressed as pirates – braved horrible weather to take a dip on the Pembrokeshire town’s North Beach.

    Local hotelier Chris Osborne, chairman of the Tenby Sea Swimming Association, which organises the Boxing Day Swim and also President of Tenby’s Chamber of Trade, said he was extremely pleased with the turn out.

    He said: “The weather was not kind to us this year but we still had a large group of swimmers and the usual big crowd of onlookers. This has become one of the big social events of the year in Pembrokeshire, sometimes people don’t see each for the whole year then meet up at the swim.

    “We’ve had swimmers not only from North and South Pembrokeshire and surrounding counties but Cardiff and Swansea as well.

    Read WalesOnline

  • China’s top sport star Sun Yang hit the headline again. Only this time, he was involved in doping. The Olympic and world swimming champion was banned for three months after being tested positive for the stimulant trimetazidine in May. Sun said he used the prescription drug Vasorel to treat chronic heart palpitations but failed to file the therapeutic use exemption.

    The 23-year-old had his explanation accepted but the timing of revealing his case went under fire. Sun’s ban finished in August and he went on to win three gold medals in the Incheon Asian Games before the doping news was released in November.

    Chinese sports authorities admitted that they should give more consideration to famous athletes’ doping cases in the future. ”In anti-doping, we want to treat everyone equally. That’s why we don’t announce some single case just because he or she is famous,” said Jiang Zhixue, head of governmental anti-doping department.

    “Now I am wondering if it is necessary to make important cases known earlier than others,” he said. In athletics, China’s top hammer thrower Zhang Wenxiu was stripped of Asian Games gold after anabolic agent Zeranol was found in her sample.

    Read india.com