Swimmer's Daily

  • A very interesting discussion here on Danish TV2, retired Danish swimmer Jakob Andkjær, Danish former professional road racing cyclist Niki Østergaard and Danish footballer Thomas Rasmussen and others discussing the two current doping cases in Danish swimming, plus doping and doping prevention in general. It is unfortunately in Danish only, but Niki Sørensen says when asked about the length of Glæsner’s ban, that he got off easy.

    – The medals are of course a penalty, but the three months is a three-month vacation so that he can go on training at home in the swimming pool. I feel it is to get off easy. Compared to all other cases I know about people getting caught with minimal amounts of this or that, this is a very small penalty.

    – I am a big supporter of punishment for people who break the rules. I will not go into how big the punishment should have been, but he should at least look at the three months and say that it was small price to pay to fix his error. Any cyclist could have made ​​this mistake and gotten two years. You have to remember that, says Niki Sørensen.

    (more…)

  • A pleasure cruise ends in disaster when a swimmer gets tangled in the boat’s propeller! Time is of the essence; can the Coast Guard get to the young victim in time?

  • See PopSci

    German liquor company Jägermeister recently hosted a party in Mexico, during which staffers poured what appeared to be numerous 10-liter dewars of liquid nitrogen into the water, creating a foggy effect. In videos, you can hear partiers “Woo!”-ing… and then, not two minutes later, those not in the water pointing and saying, in Spanish, “Somebody’s fainted. Someone else has fainted.”

    Another video shows partiers jumping into the pool to pull limp bodies out of the water.

    What happened? Not what others have reported, according to ChemBark, a blog by St. Louis University chemist Paul Bracher. Fox News Latino, the U.K.’s the Daily Mail, KTLA and others have said the nitrogen reacted with chlorine in the pool to form a “toxic cloud.”

    “This is almost certainly incorrect,” Bracher wrote. Actually, molecular nitrogen is inert and shouldn’t react with anything in the pool, he said. Instead, the nitrogen displaced oxygen from the air above the pool, “leaving none for the swimmers to breathe.”

  • Heri Joensen, lead vocal and guitarist of Týr completing the “Skálafjarðarsvimjingin 2013” open water swim across the firth Skálafjørður in the Faroe Islands, Sunday 16 June, 2013, in sync with his girlfriend. I suspect they gave him the No. 13 cap on purpose :-)

    Týr frontman Heri Joensen completes the 2013 swim across Skálafjørður

    Here is one of their songs, built upon one of our traditional ballads (see “kvæði“)

    TÝR – Sinklars Visa

    Here is him being interviewed while touring USA

    TYR Interview on Metal Injection

    And here is Sinklars Vísa being sung in the traditional Faroese chain dance way, a story about The Battle of Kringen when Norwegians decimated a force of Scottish mercenaries led by George Sinclair in the Kalmar War (1611-1613).

  • First responders say swimmers should be wary of unseen currents before jumping into creeks or rivers.

  • Pál Joensen gold medal winner in the 400, 800 and 1500 meter freestyle at the Beograd 2008 European Junior Championships. This tribute was played on local radio on arrival to the Faroe Islands again, a mash-up of the Bosnian hit song “Zjenico oka moga” by Hari Mata Hari that we heard all the time while in Beograd, mixed with Faroe speak produced by the Rás2 and a slideshow of photos from back then. And now with closed captions also :-)

  • “My dad, George Thornton, will be setting the world record for the oldest person to swim across the English Channel this summer at 73 years old. Part of his mission is to raise funds for one of his favorite charities, Team Fort Collins.”

    George Thornton – English Channel Swim – 21 for 21 – Team Fort Collins from Chuck Thornton on Vimeo.

  • South Korean protesters swim to disputed islands amid diplomatic issues between Seoul and Japan. Paula Hancocks reports.

  • Joost Reijns and Sebastiaan Verschuren are on their way to the Olympic Games of Rio de Janeiro 2016.

    Joost Reijns missed London 2012 because of his health after an incredible 2011 short course season where he became a European finalist. He had to start from scratch after intensive chemotherapy, and he is willing to do everything it takes to achieve his goal: the Olympic final of the 200 meters freestyle.

    Follow Joost on his Road to Rio:
    http://www.twitter.com/jreijns
    http://www.facebook.com/reijns87
    http://www.joostreijns.nl

    Sebastiaan Verschuren became an Olympic finalist during the one main swimming event in London; the 100 meters freestyle. Only eight hundredths of a second shy of an Olympic medal, Sebastiaan is determined to swim his fastest race ever during the Olympic final in Rio de Janeiro.

    Follow Sebastiaan on his Road to Rio:
    http://www.twitter.com/sverschuren
    http://www.facebook.com/sverschuren
    http://www.sebastiaanverschuren.nl