Swimmer's Daily

  • At the French Olympic Trials today, Ben Stasilius set a new French record in the 200 meter backstroke, with a time of 1:56.39 trumping Pierre Roger’s 1:56.64 from the French Nationals in 2009. This was the only French Olympic qualification today, one of the noteworthy miss outs the women’s 100 freestyle, although they did have 4 women qualifying for the 4×100 free relay. Read more here on SwimmingWorld Magazine.

  • Members of the Chinese aquatics team well equipped on the final night of the Rome 2009 World Aquatics Championships. Gee, almost missed my New Year’s resolution tonight, because of a network outage :-/

    Chinese fans at Roma 2009 (2)

  • No, these are not The Faroese Mafia, but our up-and-coming swimming stars. From left to right Magnus Jákupsson, Faroese born and raised who moved to Denmark in August 2011, but who still competes for our islands. Frans Johannesen, son of a Faroese couple who moved to Denmark when he was a kid, therefore raised in Denmark and competing for them. And Pál Joensen, born and raised and still training here. Between the three of them, they have qualified for the A-final in every event at the Danish Open 2012 they’ve participated in, only Magnus was disqualified in the 200 IM (bad boy!). The real Faroese Mafia is best kept a secret.

    (Mafia member René Thomsen took this picture)

  • This is what the DR live stream sounded and looked like. As I’ve mentioned, a bit cloudy, but with excellent sound and commentary. Oh and yes, our guy won, Pál Joensen 1:48.98 and a new Faroese record, Mads Glæsner 2nd in 1:49.05, Daniel Skaaning 3rd in 1:49.85 and Anders Lie 4th in 1:49.86. Tomorrow they get to swim the 4×200 freestyle, to try for 7:15.65 and Olympic qualification.

    And here is René Thomsen’s much better quality video from the pool deck

  • Two world class performances at the Bellahøj Svømmestadion, yesterday evening. Pál Joensen first in 3:46.84 and a new Faroese record, Mads Glæsner second in 3:46.93. Brilliant.

    Courtesy of René Thomsen / paljoensen.com

  • In the women’s 100 meter freestyle, world champion Jeanette Ottesen confirmed her Olympic qualification with a time of 53.90, followed by also qualifying Pernille Blume in 54.06. In the 800 freestyle, Lotte Friis cruised to a time of 8:28.52 and confirmed qualification, with Grainne Murphy (IRL) clocking 8:29.55 and 2nd also under the FINA A standard of 8:33.84.

    (Blume interviewed by Danish sport’s excellent video channel onsport.dk)

    And in the men’s 200 freestyle, 2 guys went under the time of 1:49.82 demanded by the Danish Swimming Federation to qualify for a hopefully Olympic qualifying men’s 4×200 relay tomorrow, and two were very close, Pál Joensen winning in 1:48.98, Mads Glæsner 2nd in 1:49.05, Daniel Skaaning 3rd in 1:49.82 and Anders Lie 4th in 1:49.86.

    A new Faroese record for Pál, the old one was 1:50.04 from the Danish Championships in 2009, now it is up to the Danish heads to decide, whether they will go for a 4×200 time trial tomorrow, to try to make the Olympic qualification time of 7:15.65. The FINA A standard for qualifying as an individual was 1:47.82, so no Danish selections for that.

    All results from today’s finals can be seen here on livetiming.dk

  • On the last day of Australian Trials, Campbell sisters Cate and Bronte touched first and second in the women’s 50 freestyle final, 24.44 and 24.61 respectively, to become the first siblings in 40 years to qualify on the same Australian Olympic team. In the men’s 1500 freestyle, no Aussie qualified, which I totally didn’t expect. All in all, Australia selected 21 men and 23 women for the Games, 22 of them debutants. Read more here on SwimmingWorld Magazine.

  • At the French Nationals today, Alain Bernard had to settle for 48.97 and 5th in the men’s 100 freestyle, defending Olympic champion from Beijing 2008. Yannick Agnel and Fabien Gilot took the individual Olympic qualification spots in 48:02 and 48.38, while Clement Lefert (48.64), Amaury Leveaux (48.69), Gregory Mallet (48.97) and Bernard are probable relay swimmers. In the men’s 200 breaststroke, Hugues Duboscq missed out on his 4th Olympic appearance, read more here on SwimmingWorld Magazine.

  • “Operation Eamon Sullivan”, that’s about right ! :-)