Swimmer's Daily

  • giant-barred-frog“The Giant Barred frog is the breastroke champion of the animal kingdom.”

    Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

    http://youtu.be/QvNP8YAzA90

  • michael-phelps-suitsSee USA Today

    Michael Phelps loves the legal drama Suits, USA’s top-rated original drama. He has tweeted about being a fan and has called the show one of his favorites. Now the Olympic swimmer is making an appearance on its midseason return, March 6 (Thursdays at 9 p.m. ET/PT).

     

    In the scene, after Harvey Specter (Gabriel Macht) failed to sign Phelps as a client, the lawyer’s girlfriend and new colleague Dana “Scottie” Scott (Abigail Spencer) is determined to land the star athlete for the firm. They’re at a restaurant when Phelps walks in. Spencer serves up some saucy dialogue and Phelps plays it cool.

    http://youtu.be/Y2uT3pyqsSk

    Huffington Post writes “This isn’t the first time that Phelps has guest starred as himself on a television series. Check out the clip below when Phelps made a cameo on HBO’s “Entourage.””

  • See wptv.com

    A pod of dolphins stole the show Sunday at a surfing competition in Ventura County, California.

    Spectators cheered as the dolphins rode the waves along with surfers at the 2014 Rincon Classic.

    Even surfers stopped to watch as about a dozen mammals cut through the waves.

    See also kvue.com

  • See WKBN

    Boardman’s boys’ swim team continues with a decade old tradition on Sunday afternoon, dying each other’s hair bleach blonde.

    The team is preparing for the Sectional tournament that takes place on February 6th at the University of Akron.

    Fifteen swimmers from the boys team went to Beautiful Creations hair and nail salon in Boardman to complete the dying process. The salon provided all the necessary dye. The boys will leave their hair blonde for the next three weeks, then shave their heads the night before the meet.

    The female swimmers on the team also took part in a team tradition Sunday afternoon, adding red dye to their hair.

    boardman

  • Read Scientific American

    Despite being the first leg and covering the shortest distance in any triathlon, swimming has proved to be the most deadly. Minneapolis Heart Institute cardiologist Kevin Harris last year published a study in JAMA: The Journal of American Medical Association analyzing the results of 2,971 USA Triathlon-sanctioned events held between January 2006 and September 2008, during which 14 participants died—13 of them while swimming and one while biking. […]

    Nearly all of the deaths you studied occurred during the swimming events. Did this surprise you, given that swimming is the first leg of the triathlon and, presumably, the athletes are not suffering from the heat or from exhaustion at this point in the competition?

    Yes, exactly. We were first surprised by this but I note this trend continues beyond the end of our study (also in several non-sanctioned races we did not formally look at). While at first I was surprised, it does make sense for a number of reasons: first, the adrenaline surge and pure number of athletes entering the water at the same time; second the fact that I suspect many athletes come from a background in running or other sports and may be less adept at swimming; third, swimming in a triathlon is totally different sport than doing some laps in the pool due to variability of extremes of waves [as well as] people swimming around you and on top of you; fourth, the inability to rest properly if needed (or call for help) as you could do in the marathon and bike [segments]; and, fifth, the difficulties in being noticed if the swimmer is in trouble due to the number of athletes in a body of water, which is not transparent. I think these are some of the factors that are related.

  • See FCN

    Drowning is the number one cause of non-injury death for kids ages one to four and it is 100% preventable.

    Especially here in Florida where water is all over the place, it’s important for kids to learn to swim.

    “Most children take better to the water environment if they’re taught at an earlier age,” says Infant Swim Resource instructor Amy Pritchett.

    Infant Swim Resource is a program that starts kids as young assix months in the pool learning to float.

  • “The Nairobi Swimming Association kicked off the 2014 season with the triple gala at the Peponi school, ahead of a season packed with several international competitions. The association also used the meet as a practice session to identify swimmers who will make up the national team set to travel to South Africa for the african junior championships in March.”

    http://youtu.be/15uGBBOG0VY

  • jo-abiRead Sunshine Coast Daily

    A call to ban backyard pools in Australia has caused outrage on social media.

    Jo Abi, a regular writer for ivillage.com.au, said that if swimming pools were banned children’s lives wouldn’t be put “at risk”.

    “The reason I started thinking about the banning of backyard pools was because February is the month in which most children drown and we are coming up to that,” Mrs Abi said. [… ]

    But people commenting on Facebook disagreed with Mrs Abi, saying that everyone should have the right to enjoy a backyard swimming pool.

    “Looks like Australia is fast becoming the unlucky country,” Sharon Anderson said.

    “People have a right to enjoy their life and if having a pool is one of them, then so be it. We have owned property with pools, but ours was always fenced properly, even before the laws were in place.”

    Post by iVillage Australia.
    Post by Daily Mercury.

  • orcas-stalking-swimmerSee The New Zealand Herald

    A swimmer who had a close encounter with orca in Wellington’s Lyall Bay yesterday was never in danger, an orca expert says.

    The person who sent the video, Rebecca Parlett, said the swimmer was unaware he was being followed by two of the ocean’s top predators until being alerted by other beachgoers.

    He told them he turned around at one point and could have touched one.

    Image courtesy of Rennett Stowe, CC BY 2.0