Swimmer's Daily

  • Stew Leonard III Children’s Charities today announced the launch of its new Stewie the Duck Learns to Swim mobile app for iPad and iPhone. The app, which is free of charge, is the first app of its kind designed to promote water safety to children. It was remarkably approved by Apple on April 4, 2012, which would have been Stew Leonard III’s 25th birthday, a toddler who drowned on January 1, 1989, sparking his parents to pledge that they would do everything in their power to prevent this tragedy from striking other families. “Drowning is the leading cause of accidental death for children under age 5. We see kids who are using and enjoying their parents’ iPhone and iPads every day, so we knew that developing a water safety app would be a great way to communicate with parents and children alike” said Kim and Stew Leonard, founders of Stew Leonard III Children’s Charities. Via timesunion.com, go visit stewietheduck.com

  • An Iranian diplomat has been accused of fondling girls at a local swimming pool in Brazil’s capital city Brasilia, a case testing local perceptions of diplomatic immunity laws. Witnesses said the diplomat had been pretending to swim around the pool in a “duck-diving” manner, police said. While underwater, however, the diplomat surreptitiously fondled four girls between the ages of nine and 15 years, police said. Some of the girls began screaming and their parents confronted the man. “It is really surprising that a diplomat would act in such a way,” said Johnson Monteiro, a civil police detective who handled the case. Read The Wall Street Journal

  • Mutual of Omaha recently launched Swim Star 2012, a unique swimming game app for iPhone and iPad, in anticipation of the U.S. Olympic Swim Trials, which will take place in the company’s hometown of Omaha, Nebraska. in June, and the Summer Olympic Games in London. Swim Star 2012 allows players to select an avatar and their preferred swim stroke to compete for a place on the podium at every event. Players can progress from beginner level to qualifying, regional, nationals and world levels. Swim Star 2012 has GameCenter integration that allows players to post times to a leaderboard for each stroke. It also offers Facebook and Twitter integration to share accomplishments with friends. See iTunes and swimstargame.com, via MarketWatch

  • Chinese athletes including at least 196 competitors under China’s National Aquatics Centre are swearing off meat ahead of the London Olympics out of fear that domestic pork, beef and lamb could contain substances banned under anti-doping rules, a report said Wednesday. They are instead relying on protein powder and fish to meet the protein needs. Authorities are particularly concerned that athletes could unwittingly consume clenbuterol, which is banned for food production in China but has been found in contaminated pork. Read more here on Bangkok Post.

  • Libby Trickett“I’ve had roller-coaster rides at both of the Olympics (I’ve competed in), I understand to some extent how Olympics can pan out, generally it’s not the way we expect them to pan out,” Trickett said.

    “The biggest advice I would give to any athlete is to expect the unexpected – because the Olympics (are) everything and more than you can ever imagine …

    “I’m excited to not only experience that again first-hand, but obviously to see it for the guys who are the newies on the team.”

    Read more here on ABC News, photo courtesy of Liz Higgs, CC BY-ND 2.0

  • Courtesy of RT

  • A photo from the FLOT learn-to-swim program enrollment back in September 2008, here in Toftir, Faroe Islands. We’ve all been there ! :-)

    Watch your back !

  • TV4 Sport Sweden met Ryan Lochte at the Dual in The Pool in December 2011, apparently you have to wait three months to get a 10 minute interview with the American swim star.

  • Disclaimer: I don’t understand Russian well enough to be absolutely sure in my translation here, but it looks like Yana Martynova from Tatarstan was the first and only Russian to qualify for the Olympics yesterday, with a winning time of 4:38.69 in the 400 IM, exceeding the FINA A selection cut by 3.06 seconds. Egor Degtyarev was only 0.02 from the selection cut (and FINA A qualifying time) of 3:49.92, but was still happy with his first Russian Championships win, while Elena Sokolova was more unhappy with her 4:12.29 in the women’s 400 freestyle. Read russwimming.ru