Swimmer's Daily

  • Read SBS

    Disappointing performances by Australia’s swimmers at the 2012 London Olympics might have been partly due to a poor understanding of the history and strong traditions of their predecessors.

    Olympic historian Harry Gordon believes a better knowledge of the spirit of Australian teams at past Games might have helped prevent the internal ruptures in London that left the swimmers bringing home only one gold medal, from the 4x100m women’s freestyle relay.

    “A lack of respect for the past converted into a lack of inspiration,” Gordon said at the launch of his latest book From Athens With Pride – The Official History of the Australian Olympic Movement 1894-2014.

    Gordon, the Australian Olympic Committee’s (AOC) official historian since 1992, quoted late friend and AFL coaching great Allan Jeans: “To know where you are going, you need to know where you have been.”

  • Read The Age

    A couple of days before Kyle Chalmers was due to flew to Sydney for the national age swimming championships this year, the 15-year-old decided to go to a high school football training and “have a kick with the lads”. Chalmers, the son of former Crows and Power ruckman, Brett Chalmers, returned from the session, with a cracked index finger on his right hand when the ball hit it awkwardly.

    After he finished competing at the meet, which he took part in after defying initial medical opinion that he should rest for up to eight weeks – he became the latest promising junior swimming star to be lumped with the label of the “next Ian Thorpe”.

    http://youtu.be/wd4eqL5u6QQ

  • Read Sports Illustrated

    After Ryan Lochte won five more medals at the 2012 Summer Games, bringing his grand total of Olympic hardware to 11, the media couldn’t get enough of the brawny swimmer—and vice versa. Photos of a shirtless Lochte started popping up all over the Internet, People magazine named him to its “Sexiest Man Alive” list, and E!even inked a deal with the swimmer for his own reality TV show, What Would Ryan Lochte Do?, which premiered last spring.

    But those days are all over now, says Lochte, who ended his brief stint with reality TV after one season and remains adamant we won’t see him racing royalty in Las Vegas pools at three in the morning again any time soon. (The swimmer did indeed once race Prince Harry in a now-infamous incident outside a Vegas club in 2012.) “No, you won’t see any of that anymore,” says Lochte of the early-morning matchup, which we assume the three-time Olympian won. “Especially when it’s two years out from the Olympics.”

    ryan lochte photo

    Photo by firetwink

  • Read The Daily Northwestern

    More than 30 individuals gathered on Thursday to hear Michael Holtz, an openly gay swimmer and LGBT activist, talk about the “reinventions” in his life and LGBT issues in athletics.

    Holtz, who was Rainbow Alliance’s Spring Speaker, began his talk by describing his life in high school in Naples, Florida. He said although he was very active and successful in high school, he didn’t feel happy with his life.

    “People would accept me not because I was gay and successful, but rather they would overlook the fact that I was gay because I was successful,” Holtz said.

    Below is an interview with Holtz from back in 2010

  • Read The Telegraph. And jeez.

    So worried are Olympic organisers by how far behind schedule the 2016 Rio Games has fallen, London has reportedly been asked, in secret, if it could host the event at the last minute.

    According to the London Evening Standard, an informal approach has been made by IOC chiefs to ascertain whether London’s 2012 Olympic venues could be brought back into use. […]

    rio 2016 photo

    Photo by S. Reachers

    (more…)

  • FINA goes to Bollywood!!! Today is the official release of Khwaabb, a Bollywood romance movie about two athletes and their struggles in life, featuring images from the World Swimming Championships 2010 in Dubai!

    Post by FINA.
    http://youtu.be/JxFP_Fp4Y3I

  • See KENS5

    A swim coach and lifeguard instructor with the Northside Independent School District resigned last week, hours after the I-Team asked the district to examine his background.

    Chris Mullikin, 39, was hired as a clerk for the district’s natatorium in 2011.

    He was promoted to swim coach in 2012 and became certified to instruct lifeguards, according to documents released to the I-Team.

    But recently, Mullikin boasted to fellow natatorium staff members he was a one-star general in the United States Air Force, a graduate of the Air Force’s Combat Rescue Officer School and a medical doctor certified to train EMT’s.

  • Read the Mirror

    We’ve all made our fair share of stupid bets but this one could be right up there with the best.

    Football fan James Hammett-Burke is convinced Garry Monk won’t see out his three-year contract at Swansea and decided to put a wager on it.

    But rather than a cheeky £5 gamble, he is promising to SWIM the English Channel!

    Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

  • See BBC

    Groomsmen Dougal Grey and Clayton Deane rushed to rescue a fisherman in trouble, during the wedding of a friend of theirs.

    Bride and groom Jo-Anne and Aaron Easterbrook were taking part in a photoshoot off the coast of Queensland when they spotted the man in trouble.