From left to right Bonnie Brandon (USA), Daryna Zevina (UKR) and Duane Da Rocha Marche (ESP), medal winners in the FINA 2012 World Swimming Championships (25m) women’s 200 backstroke, presenting their medals to the photographers alongside the pool. I had fun trying to catch a flash or two, these Sonys are really good at capturing details despite of strong backlight.
Wild numbers here on SwimNews, Barcelona’s Club Natación Sabadell (CNS) is reducing the income of more than 90% of its staff, or 208 people, by between 30 and 50% over the next two years. The measure affects swimmers and coaches, who in return apparently are expected to reduce their workload by 35% (?). Swimmers in Sabadell are at the moment for instance Aschwin Wildeboer and Alena Popchanka, see the squads here.
(A presentation of Club Sabadell, produced by the Spanish Olympic Committee)
As mentioned yesterday, the Olympic winning swimmer gets a new reality series called “What Would Ryan Lochte Do?” Listen in.
A must-read for us involved in Nordic swimming, this piece on Speed Endurance by Danish blogger, full-time swim coach and Eurosport commentator Ricky Clausen:
We invest a lot of money (in my country Denmark we spend around 1.200.000 euro centrally every year on the national training center and the national teams and the clubs spend much more combined on their elite programs) and we get nothing in return apart from the “joy of seeing the swimsâ€. There are no resulting sponsorship deals, no increase in spectators for any meets, no rise in the number of members in the clubs, no rise in the quality of any other incentive in swimming and no other reward of any kind except for helping 16-20 individuals (the swimmers and their coaches) achieve their own personal goals. If they perform to a certain extent the national funding body (Team Denmark) will continue to contribute vast resources to (yes… you guessed it): to those 8-10 swimmers…
Danish 100 freestyle World Champion Jeanette Ottesen Gray is partially sidelined 4-6 weeks thanks to a broken toe, that she got from trying out martial arts. Read Sporten.dk (in Danish):
– ‘This Christmas I did Jiu Jitsu as alternative training. I was up against a man whom I was actually stronger. Then he grabbed my toe and broke it.’
She cannot kick with that leg now, cannot run and has trouble walking. Exercise is limited to dryland and swimming using only her good leg for at least 4 weeks.
Sporten.dk also quotes her for having decided not to both defend her 100 freestyle world championships crown and swim the 50 butterfly this summer, since those two events land on the same date.
– ‘I’ve decided not to do as I usually do and compete in both events. But a lot depends on how good a shape I will be in.’
According to E!, ‘the Olympic’s golden party boy’ will join the likes of the Kardashian family with a brand new docu-series, What Would Ryan Lochte Do?, debuting this April only on E! “The six-episodes will follow the self-proclaimed King of Gainesville, Fla. as he looks for love, hits the pool and provides a goldmine of GIF opportunities along the way.” Via The Swim Aids
Inspirational video from Keri-anne Payne taking us through her swimming journey and challenges.
From left to right Bonnie Brandon (USA), Daryna Zevina (UKR) and Duane Da Rocha Marche (ESP), medal winners in the women’s 200 meter backstroke at the FINA 2012 World Swimming Championships (25m) in Istanbul, Turkey. See the result list here.
