Swimmer's Daily

  • jacco-verhaerenRead SBS and ABC

    Jacco Verhaeren won’t see out the year as Australia’s head swimming coach if the team fails to perform at the Commonwealth Games and world championships, says Olympic legend Dawn Fraser.

    Verhaeren took over the role from Leigh Nugent in January after a seven-year stint as technical director for the Dutch Swimming Federation.

    With five Olympic Games under his belt, the 44-year-old has guided some of The Netherlands’ greatest swimmers, including Pieter van den Hoogenband, Inge De Bruin and Ranomi Kromowidjojo.

    His first big test will come next week when Australia’s best head to Brisbane for the national titles.

    (more…)

  • james-magnussenRead brisbanetimes

    James Magnussen says Australia’s 4x100m men’s freestyle relay team needed an overhaul after the London Olympics, but believes the new-look line-up is capable of returning to a world-class standard.

    The controversial team were the face of Swimming Australia’s much-publicised review into a “toxic” culture in the squad during the 2012 Games.

    (more…)

  • Olympic gold medal-winning Missy Franklin visits a local Kuala Lumpur pool to give a swimming clinic of a lifetime with some young people ahead of the 2014 Laureus World Sports Awards in the Malaysian capital.

    http://youtu.be/TVDY1y_Iz_4

  • See press release on Laureus

    Three of the most exciting young sports stars of their generation, who have proved world-beaters despite their age, have been honoured at the 2014 Laureus World Sports Awards in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

    Germany’s Sebastian Vettel, the youngest four-time Formula One world champion in history at 26, was named Laureus World Sportsman of the Year, US swimmer Missy Franklin, at 18, became the youngest ever winner of the Laureus World Sportswoman of the Year Award, while Spain’s Marc Márquez received the Laureus Breakthrough of the Year Award, after winning the World MotoGP Championship at just 20 years and 266 days.

  • Water photographer Sarah Lee loves the unpredictability of nature and creates art that captures the interplay of people, water, and light. Unlike other forms of photography, where pixels are painstakingly crafted, Sarah embraces what she can’t control and uses her photography to find beauty in the chaos.

  • See Watford Observer

    When a Watford couple told their vet they were going to treat their cat’s broken leg with swimming lessons he “almost killed himself laughing”, however the unorthodox therapy has proved just the ticket.

    Ra, an Egyptian Mau, had an accident last October and fractured his left femur. The rare breed has been attending hydrotherapy sessions at Theravet, in The Common, Chipperfield, for the last two months.

    http://youtu.be/N3uUKgdAnrQ

  • Thanks to Max for helping get this collab going! Max is a freshman swimmer at Stanford. A fun mashup we did of Get Lucky and Hold on We’re Going Home.

  • Read USA Today

    Michael Phelps could begin competing in meets over the next few months, paving the way for a fifth Olympic appearance in Rio de Janeiro in 2016, his coach said Tuesday.

    “He’s definitely got himself in pretty good shape physically,” Phelps’ longtime coach Bob Bowman told USA TODAY Sports.

    Bowman said Phelps has been practicing five times a week on average at the North Baltimore Athletic Club, usually one workout a day. He has not competed since the London Olympics, but he rejoined the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency’s drug testing pool last year. He regained his eligibility for competition earlier this month, Bowman said.

    “I think he feels pretty good about where he is,” Bowman said. “We’ll just kind of look around at some upcoming meets and maybe let him swim an event or two and see how it goes.”

    michael phelps photoPhoto by jdlasica

  • See The Washington Post

    When the drugs and the doctors and the physical therapists failed her, Katie Pumphrey had one choice left: She could run from pain or confront it, curtail her lifestyle or push it as far as pain would allow.

    Pumphrey, a 26-year-old swim coach and painter who has been in chronic pain for nearly two decades, had discovered along the way that intense, exhausting exercise brought some relief from the strange symptoms of her fibromyalgia, a controversial neuromuscular disease with no known cure. And so she decided to go for broke.

    The Baltimore woman is now preparing to swim the English Channel, a physical and logistical undertaking so enormous that pain will just have to get in line with the other challenges she has decided to take on: hypothermia, tides, oil tankers, wind, waves, saltwater, jellyfish, injuries, the financial cost and many more.