Swimmer's Daily

  • Brilliant summary video here from the first day of the Mare Nostrum 2012 meet in Barcelona today, courtesy of the host Club Natació Sant Andreu.

  • A California high school water polo and swim coach was arrested Friday after detectives found probable cause to believe that he had engaged in sexual conduct with a student at the school, police said. “It’s the same old story of a coach taking advantage of their position and coercing a minor into a relationship,” an attorney said. SwimmingWorld Magazine writes that because 25-year-old Joshua David Tatro is not a coach member of USA Swimming, they have not jurisdiction to add him to the public Banned for Life list, but can begin the process to add him to the private flagged list kept in case someone attempts membership at a later date. Read more here on Contra Costa Times

  • After this first of two days of the Swimming Championships of the Small States of Europe, Iceland must be clearly in the lead in the nations competition, having won 9 out of 18 events plus quite a few minor and junior medals also. See result list here, I list the winners in the senior competition below.

    • Women 200 free – Inga Elin Cryer (ISL) 2:06.54 (711)
    • Men 200 fly – Haciane Hocine (AND) 2:07.96 (661)
    • Men 400 freestyle – Iacovos Hadjiconstantinou (CYP) 4:07.13 (706)
    • Women 200 backstroke – Sarah Rolko (LUX) 2:19.13 (721)
    • Men 400 IM – Colin Bensadon (GIB) 4:49.97 (594)
    • Women 100 breast – Karen Sif Vilhjalmsdottir (ISL) 1:14.70 (642)
    • Men 100 free – Orri Freyr Gudmundsson (ISL) 51.57 (752)
    • Women 100 fly – Snjolaug Tinna Hansdottir (ISL) 1:04.97 (642)
    • Men 50 breast – Omiros Zagkas (CYP) 29.46 (741)
    • Women 800 free – Inga Elin Cryer (ISL) 9:05.03 (745)
    • Men 100 back – Kolbeinn Hrafnkelsson (ISL) 59.68 (659)
    • Women 50 back – Sarah Rolko (LUX) 29.58 (765)
    • Men 50 fly – Orri Freyr Gudmundsson (ISL) 25.61 (671)
    • Women 50 freestyle – Clelia Tini (SMR) 26.59 (710)
    • Men 200 breast – Hocine Haciane (AND) 2:24.46 (684)
    • Women 200 IM – Karen Sif Vilhjalmsdottir (ISL) 2:27.50 (625)
    • Men 4×100 free – Iceland (ISL) 3:35.68 (664)
    • Women 4×100 medley – Luxembourg (LUX) 4:30.39 (633)

  • Interesting article here on The Wall Street Journal, on how Missy Franklin’s coach Todd Schmitz has focused on fun and avoiding burnout, ever since she started training on his team at the age of 7.

    Many coaches with a prodigy in their stable would choose to increase her workouts to test her potential. But in the view of Schmitz, the biggest danger for Franklin and for all his swimmers is burnout. So even as Franklin broke record after record, Schmitz treated her like everyone else her age in his elite group. That was the equivalent of owning a Ferrari and driving the speed limit.

    This meant that Franklin would swim two hours a day, five or six days a week, with an average of roughly 4,000-5,000 yards per day—less than half the yardage logged by top college swimmers. In the summer, he doesn’t hold Saturday morning practices, giving Franklin and all of his other swimmers a weekend-long break from the pool.

    “The last thing I want to do is for them to get to the end of the summer and feel like all they’ve done is swim,” he said.

  • Slovenia’s Damir Dugonjic of the Debrecen 2012 medal podium, after winning the men’s 50 meter breaststroke in 27.32, ahead of Italy’s Fabio Scozzoli in 27.49 and Greece’s Panagiotis Samilidis in 27.64. See result list here.

    Damir Dugonjic European champion in the 50 breaststroke

  • YES, the organizers of the Mare Nostrum 2012 meet in Barcelona this weekend announce here that there will be a live webcast from the finals here starting today at 16:00 local time (14:00 UTC) and tomorrow from 16:15 (14:14 UTC), courtesy of Esport 3. That’s in about two hours :-) Results can be found here.

  • This weekend Andorra hosts the 3rd Swimming Championship of the Small States of Europe, featuring 13 swimmers from Luxembourg, 15 from Gibraltar, 6 from Malta, 4 from Cyprus, 2 from Montenegro, 23 from Iceland, 13 from San Marino and 33 from the host country Andorra, plus additional participant in the simultaneous 5th Andorra Open.

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  • Not to be outdone by BT, Virgin takes to the London Underground, supplying at least 80 stations with free WiFi in time for the Olympics, switching to pay-as-you-go model in about 120 stations by the end of the year. Read more here on Engadget and here on Slashgear.

  • Yesterday the Swedish Swimming Federation announced 5 more names on the Swedish London 2012 roster, Stefan Nystrand and Stina Gardell for individual swims and Michelle Coleman, Ida Marko-Varga and Gabriella Fagundez for the women’s 4×100 freestyle relay.

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