Swimmer's Daily

  • 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

  • Experts agree that it’s a great way of staying fit and healthy at any age, but when faced with higher prices people are likely to swim less often, while other forms of physical activity such as working out or walking are barely affected.

    According to a study by Brunel University London’s Health Economics Research Group (HERG), swimming is the individual activity that most people would drop if they faced higher prices.

    The study included interviews with 1,683 people, 83% of whom took part in physical activity in some form. It found that people facing 10% higher entry fees to swimming pools were 29% less active, once other variations such as their age and differences in income were taken into account.

    A similar 10% higher price of a gym workout would hardly dent enthusiasm, with participation dropping by just 3%. In the case of brisk walking, the expected drop would be even less at 2%.

    Prof Julia Fox-Rushby, Professor of Health Economics at Brunel’s HERG, said: “Among those surveyed there was a very clear understanding that physical activity is a means of getting healthy, losing weight and having fun.

    “But, we have shown for the first time in England, that engaging in physical activity costs you real money and people make a trade-off between whether to go to a leisure centre and how much it would cost them.”

    Read EurekAlert

    Image courtesy of stevepb

  • A Good Samaritan rescued an elderly man who accidentally drove his SUV into a swimming pool on Long Island.

    The incident happened around 3:45 p.m. in Commack.

    79-year-old Joseph DiDonato was driving a 2010 Acura SUV through the parking lot of Mayfair Foot Care on Harned Road when he apparently pressed the gas pedal instead of the brake.

    The Acura broke through a fence into the backyard of a home and landed in the deep end of an in-ground pool on Smiths Lane.

    The homeowner, John Bacchi, 32, was in the backyard at the time of the crash.

    Bacchi jumped into the pool, broke the driver’s side window, and pulled DiDonato out of the window to safety.

    See ABC7

  • Becky Adlington has a vision that every child in Britain should be able to swim 25 metres by the time they leave primary school.

    And on Saturday her SwimStars team arrived at Stockton’s Total Fitness health club to announce the opening of the scheme at the health club.

    Launching the scheme, she said: “Despite my retirement from competitive swimming, my commitment to swimming is as strong as it ever was. I’m delighted that, after a very successful first year, my Becky Adlington’s SwimStars programme is going from strength to strength and we are rolling out new swim schools across the UK.

    “There are over 3,000 kids on the programme. It’s so nice to see them having the best time – they think that they’re just having a lot of fun but they’re actually learning a valuable life skill.

    See The Northern Echo

  • See FinaTV, FINA is providing live coverage of the FINA 2014 Swimming World Cup finals in Tokyo on 28th and 29th October 2014.

    Post by FINA.

  • This is the moment a London lifeboat crew saved the life of a woman thought to have epilepsy from the River Thames. Report by Claire Lomas.