Swimmer's Daily

  • Clear leaders from yesterday, Iceland managed to keep ahead also today at the Swimming Championships of the Small States of Europe, winning the team competition with 938 points ahead of host country Andorra in 707 and Luxembourg in 570. See all results etc here.

  • South Africa’s Cameron van der Burgh setting a new meet record in the men’s 100 meter breaststroke at Mare Nostrum 2012 Barcelona. Splits 27.88 – 59.73.

    [blackbirdpie url=”https://twitter.com/Cameronvdburgh/status/208948736515260416″]

  • 35-year-old Paulo Henrique Dos Santos had decided to paint himself green for Rio de Janeiro’s Challenge For Peace run, a big hit last year but this year his local paint store was out of his usual brand. So he tried an industrial brand, commonly used for painting ballistic missiles and nuclear submarines, it worked fine, didn’t come off during the run … or the next 24 hours of bathing and scrubbing. Soap, shampoo, detergent and alcohol, with girlfriend, neighbors and mom trying their luck, while Dos Santos worried if he’d ever get a job again now turned into the “Hulk of Vila Cruzeiro”. Read for instance Fox News Latino and Comics Alliance

  • 17-year-old Sycerika McMahon from Belfast, Northern Ireland, winner of the women’s 50 meter breaststroke silver medal at the Debrecen 2012 European Swimming Championships. Her first major senior medal, but undoubtedly even more more happy for having qualified for the London 2012 Olympics in the 100 breaststroke 6 days before.

    Sycerika McMahon (IRL) on the Debrecen 2012 Podium

  • U.S. National team member Mike Alexandrov talks about his preparation for the upcoming Olympic Trials as well as his desire to represent the United States in London. Courtesy of USA Swimming.

  • 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.