Thousands of Auckland children are becoming more confident in the water, thanks to a city-wide project teaching them how to swim.
The Greater Auckland Aquatic Action Plan has had up to 60,000 children from around the region taking up swimming lessons in the past two years.
Up to 200 primary schools are involved and children work towards being able to swim at least 200m – the standard distance considered for being able to survive.
A related video
“He became a national hero after winning three Olympic gold medals, but Australian swimmer Murray Rose remained an enigma until his death last year.
Australian Story presents a two-part special on Murray Rose screening Monday November 11 and Monday November 18 at 8pm on ABC1.”
http://youtu.be/j0e3lu4UEtk
“Check out this sneak peek of “Swim Fingers” airing Tuesday November 12th as part of Daily Planet’s “Race To..” Week starting Monday November 11th, 7ET only on Discovery Canada.”
http://youtu.be/Ke0D4aFt4IA
The tiger cubs at the National Zoo undergo a swim test.
See also AP
ABC News’ Matt Gutman talks with a man who believes sharks are deeply misunderstood.
So these two must be Germany’s (in orange) Johannes Dietrich and (in black) Marco di Carli (?) preparing themselves for the men’s 4×50 freestyle final at the LEN 2009 European Short Course Championships in Istanbul, Turkey. A lot bad has been said about the supersuits, but they were also the great equalizer. Behind them Frédérick Bousquet from France. See the result list here.
Read AFP
Chad Le Clos famously out-touched Michael Phelps to win Olympic butterfly gold and he said he now wants the great American’s world records after setting a new shortcourse mark in Singapore.
The South African caused a sensation last year in London when he beat the most successful Olympic athlete of all time by five-hundredths of a second in an epic 200m butterfly race.
Now Le Clos said he hoped to snatch the retired Phelps’s 100m and 200m butterfly records, set in 2009, after lowering the 200m shortcourse record at the Singapore leg of the World Cup.
“My next goal is to break one of Michael Phelps’s long-course records, eventually, maybe next year at the Commonwealth Games, or in 2015 at the world championships in Russia,” he said.
Image courtesy of Jennifer Su, CC BY 2.0
See Xinhua News via SwimmingWorld
China’s double Olympic champion Sun Yang has been suspended from all competition and training, announced the Chinese Swimming Administrative Center (CSAC) on Wednesday.
Sun was “suspended from all the competitions at home and abroad; suspended from the training of the national swimming team; and suspended from all the social and commercial activities involving the national team”, the CSAC said in the statement.
The CSAC also said they “fully supported” Hangzhou police department’s decision to give him a seven-day detention for driving without a license in Hangzhou, the capital of Zhejiang Province.
In a press release sent out today, Jeanette Ottesen Gray and Bobby Gray announce that they have filed for legal separation, after being married since August 2011, and before that a couple for the past 10 years. Read for instance Ekstrabladet (in Danish).
“We chose to announce it now so that I can have peace to prepare for the European Championships on home soil in Herning in December. We still talk, and Bobby is part of the Danish swimming community, and will probably be in Herning cheering at the Europeans,” says Jeanette Ottesen Gray.
