See Watford Observer
When a Watford couple told their vet they were going to treat their cat’s broken leg with swimming lessons he “almost killed himself laughing”, however the unorthodox therapy has proved just the ticket.
Ra, an Egyptian Mau, had an accident last October and fractured his left femur. The rare breed has been attending hydrotherapy sessions at Theravet, in The Common, Chipperfield, for the last two months.
http://youtu.be/N3uUKgdAnrQ
Thanks to Max for helping get this collab going! Max is a freshman swimmer at Stanford. A fun mashup we did of Get Lucky and Hold on We’re Going Home.
Read USA Today
Michael Phelps could begin competing in meets over the next few months, paving the way for a fifth Olympic appearance in Rio de Janeiro in 2016, his coach said Tuesday.
“He’s definitely got himself in pretty good shape physically,” Phelps’ longtime coach Bob Bowman told USA TODAY Sports.
Bowman said Phelps has been practicing five times a week on average at the North Baltimore Athletic Club, usually one workout a day. He has not competed since the London Olympics, but he rejoined the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency’s drug testing pool last year. He regained his eligibility for competition earlier this month, Bowman said.
“I think he feels pretty good about where he is,” Bowman said. “We’ll just kind of look around at some upcoming meets and maybe let him swim an event or two and see how it goes.”
Photo by jdlasica 
When the drugs and the doctors and the physical therapists failed her, Katie Pumphrey had one choice left: She could run from pain or confront it, curtail her lifestyle or push it as far as pain would allow.
Pumphrey, a 26-year-old swim coach and painter who has been in chronic pain for nearly two decades, had discovered along the way that intense, exhausting exercise brought some relief from the strange symptoms of her fibromyalgia, a controversial neuromuscular disease with no known cure. And so she decided to go for broke.
The Baltimore woman is now preparing to swim the English Channel, a physical and logistical undertaking so enormous that pain will just have to get in line with the other challenges she has decided to take on: hypothermia, tides, oil tankers, wind, waves, saltwater, jellyfish, injuries, the financial cost and many more.
Another week of awesome videos from Swimming Australia, as lead-up to the 2014 Australian Swimming Championships Trials in Brisbane, Tuesday 1 – Sunday 6 April 2014.
Monday Memory
Featuring Cate Campbell, Brittany McEvoy, Ryan Napoleon, Nik Pregelj, Bronte Campbell and Cameron McEvoy
A group of Emperor penguins encounter a piece of string across their path. Funny in itself, but even funnier here with an English translation :-D
Read NY Daily News
David Beckham was warned off swimming in the Amazon during the recent shooting of a documentary — for fear of a deadly fish swimming into his genitalia, sources tell Confidenti@l.
The 38-year-old Becks, famously nicknamed “Goldenballs,†was told by the production’s medical supervisors not to go for a dip during filming in the Brazilian rainforest because of the so-called “vampire fish.â€
The fish, called the candiru, is said to enter people through their urethras and eat their way through their private parts.
And the candiru — small, virtually transparent and nearly impossible to see even in clear water — reportedly targets people’s bottoms, too.
Photo by Yahoo Pressebilder
Read Santa Barbara Independent and see KEYT
Nicholas Johnson, a 19-year-old UCSB freshman athlete, was swimming laps at the time during a joint practice with the high school’s swim team. It’s unclear what caused Johnson to lose consciousness, and police and coroner’s officials say they continue to investigate the incident.
Read SBS
World champion swimmer Cate Campbell does not like to set goals. Usually.
But the 21-year-old has one for 2014: proving last year was no fluke.
Despite sweeping all before her in 2013, Campbell is not struggling for motivation ahead of next week’s national titles in Brisbane, which double as the Glasgow Commonwealth Games trials.
Often the Australian team’s hard luck story, Campbell became their superstar by claiming 100m freestyle gold at last year’s world titles in Barcelona, remained undefeated over 100m in 2013 and owns the event’s fastest time in history in a textile suit.
She has come a long way since battling a string of setbacks, including career-threatening post viral fatigue syndrome in 2010 and pancreatitis after helping the 4x100m freestyle relay team win London Olympic gold.
“I was blown away by last year. I didn’t think that was possible ever, let alone so soon after the setbacks I encountered,” Campbell told AAP.
“This year I want to build on it, not better it, but to equal it.
“I want to prove that it wasn’t a fluke.”
