Swimmer's Daily

  • Read thejournal.ie

    Everyone’s got their theory about how best to prepare for the plunge (usually involving tots of rum or whiskey), and the best way to regain a regular human temperature afterwards (again with the whiskey). But what’s the official advice? We got on to the folks at Irish Water Safety — here’s what they told us…

    1. If you’re organising a charity swim, make sure to give the details to your local Coast Guard unit and gardaí first.
    2. Appoint a ‘safety officer’ to oversee the event, and who will have the ultimate responsibility for deciding if the swim can go ahead.
    3. Don’t take a chance on running the swim if the weather deteriorates — defer it to a different day.
    4. It is a fallacy that alcohol will keep you warm when entering the water; in fact it has the reverse effect and could well kill you. IWS says it “strongly recommends that no alcohol be taken either before the swim or after the swim”.
    5. “Make sure you have safe access and exit points from the water”… In other words, don’t thoughtlessly throw yourself into the sea without a plan for how to get out!
    6. And the final word of advice: “Swimmers’ remaining in the water for extended periods in a gesture of bravado is not acceptable. The message is ‘Get In, Get Out and Warm Up’.”

    Image courtesy of Tim Parkinson, CC BY 2.0

  • See Clouchestershire Echo

    With temperatures around to around 3C (37.4F), more than 250 swimmers stripped down to brave the freezing pool.

    The water registered at 6.5C (43.7F), surprising colder than last year’s 7C (44.6F) considering the clear skies and sunny weather.

    Famous names took to the pool, including Gloucester Rugby’s Dan Murphy and Cheltenham mayor Wendy Flynn.

    The mayor was raising money for three charities, including Hester’s Way Neighbourhood Project, Victim Support and Cheltenham Animal Shelter.

    She said: “It’s freezing, I don’t think I will be doing that again next year.

  • See Channel 4

    Covering the news on Christmas Day is always challenging – and was equally so in 1965 when ITN sent their roving reporter John Shearer to Hyde Park to interview [and join] the regular Serpentine race swimmers.

  • Read The Westmorland Gazette

    “To go across to Siberia for a winter swimming race and compete against swimmers from South Africa, USA, Estonia and South America was amazing,” he said.

    “I have done a lot of cold water swimming in the Lake District but this was an extension of what I have done before, it was something else.

    “It was very hard. When I was swimming I almost felt my body freezing in the water, it was zero degrees with ice forming on the top.

  • brooke-bennett

    Read The Examiner

    Three-time Olympic gold medalist Brooke Bennett announced that she would return to swimming in an effort to qualify for open water swimming at the 2016 Olympic Games.

    Bennett was last seen competing at the Olympics in 2000, where she won gold in the 400- and 800-meter freestyle events. Before that, Bennett won gold in the 800 freestyle at the 1996 Olympic Games.

    In her 1996 appearance, Bennett was just 16 years old. Should she qualify for the Olympics in 2016, she’ll be competing at 36 years old.

  • Featuring Tyler Clary, Michael Jamieson, Daryna Zevina, Mireia Belmonte, Jessica Hardy, Melani Costa and Cullen Jones.

  • Read the Independent

    Robin Scott-Elliot meets the Plymouth schoolgirl who is the fastest breaststroker ever – famous in Lithuania but unknown here.


    (more…)

  • Yeah, a pretty lousy photo of a whale, taken from our car yesterday, near Áir in the Faroe Islands. Four more sperm whales had gotten themselves almost beached on the banks of Hvalvík (‘Whale Bay’), here in the Faroes, like those that died a few weeks ago, one ending up exploding.

    happy-holidays-2013

    This time the weather was okay, and school was off, so I took the boys with me to see the whales, while we had time and before the weather shifted. We barely made it – Able hands had helped them off the sand banks, and we therefore only saw one of them for a minute or so, before it dove and was gone, swimming to deeper waters in the south. But the boys were happy, as we had seen the whale :-)

  • Via SwimmingWorld