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Life after swimming has left the likes of Ian Thorpe and Grant Hackett floundering, but Australia’s golden girls have taken a shine to new careers post-pool.
Athens Olympic gold medallist Giaan Rooney has carved out a successful, scandal-free career as a swimming commentator and advertising spruiker, while three-time Olympian Nicole Livingstone also has a high-profile media gig with Channel 10.
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Swimming New Zealand will up their profile with April’s State New Zealand Open Championships to be broadcast live.
SKY Television will screen the four days of the championships live from the Westwave Aquatic Centre in Henderson, Auckland from 8 to 11 April, which doubles as the official trial for the Commonwealth Games and Pan Pacific Championships.
Swimming New Zealand CEO Christian Renford said the move to live television coverage is an important step up for the sport.
“SKY and Swimming New Zealand have been partners for the last few years with delayed coverage of our championships,†said Renford.
“We want to take that to a new level and to profile our swimmers and our sport.
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Imagine trying to stay afloat wearing 20 pounds of gear. If you’re a Texas Game Warden drowning while patrolling the water is a very real danger. That’s why some Texas Game Wardens took an extreme swimming lesson recently.
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A swimming coach has lost her appeal against a conviction for assaulting a child.
Janet Hewitt, the former head coach of the West Dorset Warriors, wept as she was told by Judge Peter Johnson today that the appeal had been dismissed following a hearing at Bournemouth Crown Court.
Judge Johnson said: “I’m afraid quite simply we do not believe her account.
“It’s clear that this was a fleeting aberration on her part but it is our duty to apply the law in this case.
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Olympic champion Grant Hackett’s ex-wife Candice Alley is “filled with horror†after the swimmer lost their son and ended up wandering semi-naked through a Âcasino.
Breaking a two-year public silence on the split, Alley said she now feared for the safety of the couple’s four-year-old twins, Charlize and Jagger. “I am devastated by what I have read in the newspaper and seen on TV,†she said.
“The thought of our children being at risk, by either allegedly wandering around a hotel in the middle of the night or being left alone in a hotel room, is extremely shocking to me.â€
Great to be at Sydney Olympic Park for the first morning of the 2014 NSW State Championships
See start list, timelines
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Grayson Vaughn is a 9-year-old boy who lives in Fort Smith. And he’s defying odds by raising thousands of dollars through the sport of swimming, after he lost his hearing as a toddler.
“I like to help people be able to see if they’re deaf or not,†Grayson said.
Stroke by stroke, Grayson has helped pioneer hearing screening through Swim To Hear, an organization uses swimming as a fundraising measure to help kids with hearing loss.
See 7 News
Consider the falls from grace of swimming stars Ian Thorpe, Scott Miller, Geoff Huegill and now Grant Hackett.
Thorpe is in rehab for depression, after reportedly taking antidepressants and painkillers.
Atlanta silver and bronze medallist Scott Mille has outlined his addictions to ecstacy, cocaine and crystal meth.
While Geoff Huegill contemplated suicide after a long battle with depression and drugs.
Hackett’s battle with similar demons is, according to one former swimming star, understandable.
Lisa Curry said: “Being a champion is quite temporary, the next day they’re like everybody else and the way they deal with that, it can be quite difficult being in the so-called celebrity bubble.”
Read The Sydney Morning Herald
James Magnussen has revealed the dog-eat-dog nature of elite swimming was a reason the Australian relay team at the London Olympics used the sleeping tablet Stilnox at a controversial bonding session in the pre-Games camp at Manchester.
However, he stressed it was not an issue among current swimmers, saying it was not prescribed to them and that he knew of no one who used the tablet now.
“In the current-day swimming, I don’t think it’s a problem at all,” he said on the eve of the NSW championships, which start in Sydney on Friday.
“We don’t get prescribed it, I don’t use it, people around me don’t use it. It’s something that is not even spoken about within Swimming Australia today. It’s not a problem as far as I can see.” […]
