Swimmer's Daily

  • Diana Nyad has made history as the first person to swim the 110-mile Florida Strait. This was Nyad’s fifth attempt at the feat, and it took her 53 hours to complete. “I wanted this swim, this endeavor not to just be the athletic record,” Nyad, 64, said, “I wanted it to be a lesson for my life that says, be fully engaged.”

  • “Top Ten Thoughts Going Through Diana Nyad’s Mind While Swimming From Cuba To Florida

    http://youtu.be/K21MiUKkuOw

  • Just a photo from the 15th FINA World Championships in Barcelona, Spain. Danish national coach Nick Juba and Faroese swimmer Pál Joensen trying to figure out how Pál could get from the Faroese hotel to train with the Danes. A nice and simple bus schedule, where we were supposed to always take the same bus line (in our case number 2), to and from training and competition venues. But since the Danes belonged to another bus line, Pál ended up taking taxis.

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  • camilla-pedersenRead Jyllands-Posten (in Danish)

    Triathlete Camilla Pedersen is admitted to the intensive care unit at Odense University Hospital. The Danish European champion has sustained a fractured skull and critical bleeding around the brain as a result of a crash while bike training on Tuesday night.

    “Latest development is that Camilla will be kept in artificial coma until the weekend to give the brain maximum rest and chance to recover. We can not expect decisive news until then,” the Danish Triathlon Federation writes on its website.

    30-year-old Camilla Pedersen was European champion in triathlon in May, and in July she won also the European Championship Ironman in Frankfurt. Here she completed 3.8 km biking, 180 km cycling and 42.2 km run in 8 hours and 56 minutes.

    This qualified her for the prestigious Hawaii Ironman on October 12th.

    UPDATE! Jyllands-Posten has more here:

    “She was out training with a number of other athletes around Esbjerg when some kids came out on the road. They all reacted as it happens almost daily when you have to dodge a pedestrian or a cyclist. It was an accident, and there were no cars involved, but she has hurt herself seriously,” says national coach Michael Krüger.

    Is it life threatening?

    There hasn’t been talk about it being life threatening. But it probably is, when you are in danger of losing your mobility,” says Michael Krüger .

  • thea-storm-henriksenRead Jyllands-Posten

    Vejle teacher wants to be the first woman to complete gruelling ultra-sport feat. Thea Storm Henriksen says that she has more energy than most people. “I am not much for sitting still,” she told DR Nyheder

    And she won’t.

    Here is Thea Storm Henriksen after having participated in the world’s hardest adventure race, the Patagonian Expedition Race in Chile, back in 2012.

  • Belgium’s Brian Ryckeman happy with his silver medal in the men’s 25 km open water event at the 15th FINA World Championships in Barcelona, Spain. Also in picture, Germany’s world champion Thomas Lurz and Russia’s bronze winner Evgenii Drattchev. See the result list here.

    Brian Ryckeman (BEL) silver winner in the BCN2013 men's 25K

  • grant-hackettSee The Age

    Olympic champion Grant Hackett has been spared giving evidence in court after his former brother-in-law admitted falsely claiming the swimmer tried to run him over in his car.

    Jason Zurzolo, 37, pleaded guilty on Monday to one charge of making a false report to police in the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court, in that he lied to police when accusing Mr Hackett of trying to run him down while crossing Toorak Road in Prahran on November 2 last year.

    The court heard Zurzolo was waiting to cross the road when Mr Hackett drove past him in his black Mercedes, and that about 15 minutes later he went to a police station and reported that the swimmer had beeped his horn at him and that he, Zurzolo, had “to jump out-of-the-way”.

    But CCTV footage taken from nearby shops showed Zurzolo actually crossed the road without incident, the court was told.

    Image courtesy of Sarah Ewart, CC BY-SA 3.0

  • Nick JubaDanish Swimming Federation owned swim site SvømmeSporten has an interesting article here where they interview Danish National coach Nick Juba (in English) on Lotte Friis’ decision to move to Baltimore to train with Bob Bowman.

    Lotte Friis has left Nice and is going to start swimming in Baltimore in North Baltimore Aquatic Club. What do you think about her decision?

    “Lotte is taking a break from Nice. She may return after Christmas, she may not. It has been left open-ended. Fabrice Pellegrin, the Nice coach had indicated that he was going to focus in different training areas in the upcoming period. Lotte is keen to swim fast in the home-based European Short Course Championships in Herning in December and this influenced the decision. I think that it is a good one. I believe that she is at the stage in her career where she needs to embrace new challenges and where better than in the States.”

  • afghani_fishingSad story on The New York Times

    Six boys aged 9 to 14 were killed on a swimming outing in Northern Afghanistan, apparently the victims of policemen gone fishing who fired a rocket-propelled grenade into the river. Using explosives to stun or kill fish is not uncommon in Afghanistan, but this one went astray and exploded among a group of children bathing on the opposite shore, killing the six boys instantly and wounding two others.