Swimmer's Daily

  • Read New Tang Dynasty

    Former Olympic champion Kosuke Kitajima has urged Japan’s young swimmers to step up after a collective flop at the national championships left him wondering if he needs to postpone his retirement.

    The “Frog King” won double breaststroke gold at both the 2004 and 2008 Olympics but at 31, and expecting his first child with his pop star wife, he is getting ever closer to hanging up his goggles.

    However, he may have to remain in competition for a while yet after nobody went inside Japan’s 100m and 200m breaststroke selection times for this year’s Pan Pacific Championships and Asian Games.

    Image courtesy of jmex60, CC BY-SA 3.0
    Image courtesy of jmex60, CC BY-SA 3.0

  • Read Swimming World

    USA Swimming has put an end to months of speculation with an announcement today that Michael Phelps is expected to race at the Arena Grand Prix in Arizona next week.

    Phelps has been somewhat quietly making a comeback to competitive swimming since last fall, when the United States Anti-Doping Agency announced that the Olympic legend had taken two out-of-competition random drug tests, something a retired athlete does not do. […]

    The events Phelps is swimming in Mesa will not be known until the release of the psych sheets later this week. He’ll be in good company under the Arizona sun. USA Swimming also announced that longtime out-of-the-pool friend and in-the-pool rival Ryan Lochte is scheduled to swim in Mesa. Lochte has been working his way back to top form sinceinjuring his knee in November and the crowd would love to see the two best 200 IM swimmers in history battling side by side once again.

    michael phelps photo

    Photo by marcopako  , Feature photo by Vironevaeh

  • See ekstrabladet.dk, 25.000 readers have spoken, and their votes together with an expert panel decided that Formula 1 racing driver Kevin Magnussen is by far the greatest (active) Danish sports name, as of now. Lotte Friis was 10th and Jeanette Ottesen 12th.

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  • Jonathan travels to the island of Bonaire to take a course in freediving from Karol Meyer, a world-champion freediver. Soon he learns how to hold his breath and dive—with no scuba tank!

  • Now in its second year, British Gas SwimBritain is supported by a host of big-name swimmers including fellow London 2012 medallists Ellie Simmonds, Michael Jamieson and Becky Adlington alongside funny man David Walliams, who all completed the challenge at events around the country last year alongside thousands of swimmers.

    Find out more and register for this year’s events at swimbritain.co.uk

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  • Read stuff.co.nz

    As expected, Lauren Boyle will head the Kiwi charge for medals in Glasgow. The three-times bronze medallist at last year’s world champs in Barcelona will contest the women’s 200 metres, 400m and 800m freestyle events and lead the 4x200m freestyle relay team.

    Glenn Snyders should be in the medal hunt in the 100m and 200m men’s breaststroke events, but faces a tough task to grab gold ahead of 2012 London Olympic 100m gold medallist Cameron van der Burgh from South Africa.

    Matthew Stanley (men’s 400m freestyle) and teenager Corey Main (100m backstroke) are the other individual event able-bodied competitors in the New Zealand team.

    Luis Villanueva, Swimming NZ high performance boss, said high qualifying standards for the Games meant only the country’s elite gained spots for Glasgow in individual events.

  • “Trust Your Buddy”. Right!

  • padraig-schalerRead thejournal.ie, Caring for Pádraig and hospi-tales.com

    A group of almost 50 friends will swim in 17 counties across Ireland over 38 hours to raise money for their friend who is in a coma after a tragic accident.

    Pádraig Schaler is a hugely popular 23-year-old who is currently in Germany receiving rehabilitative neurological care after being knocked from his bike and injured in Cape Cod last summer.

    In testament to his popularity, his friends have organised Swim for Pádraig, a fundraising swim on his behalf.

    They have already raised €22,500, which will go towards the treatment of the talented Dublin swimmer and passionate Gaeilgeoir.

    The swimmers will travel around Ireland over 38 hours from today to tomorrow (12 – 13 April), brazing freezing waters to swim in every county with a coast.

  • See KSDK and KMOV

    An independent report released Friday says the University of Missouri failed to follow parts of the federal law that governs sexual harassment on campus when handling the case of a former swimmer’s suicide.

    The report concludes administrators on the Columbia campus should have investigated 20-year-old Sasha Menu Courey’s 2011 death after her parents raised questions about the events leading to her suicide. Menu Courey alleged she was sexually assaulted during her freshman year by as many as three football players, 16 months before she died.

    The school previously said it didn’t act sooner under the Title IX law because neither Menu Courey nor her parents sought a police investigation and didn’t respond to a later request for information.

    The case has since been referred to Columbia police.