• Budapest 2010 European silver medalist and Shanghai 2011 Worlds finalist cramming for exams between the 200 freestyle and 200 butterfly preliminary heats at the Faroese Short Course Championships on May 13, 2012. He won both events and 9 more at these championships, plus a silver medal and some relay medals.

    Pál doing homework between prelim heats

  • Or is it Hardy’s dog ?

    [blackbirdpie url=”https://twitter.com/#!/SwissDom/status/201434822856548353″]

    Dominik Meichtry on WhoSay

    [blackbirdpie url=”https://twitter.com/#!/swimhardy/status/201452861115207680″]

  • It’s been reported he took up rock music in New York, rode motorcycles and started smoking. He auctioned the Olympic gold medal on eBay for $17,100 and gave it all to 2004 Asian tsunami relief. He simply lost the silver medal. Ervin said he hasn’t lived in the same place for longer than nine months over the last nine years. He looks nothing like the 19-year-old baby face from Sydney.

    From the top down, his buzz cut’s been replaced by unsettled brown curls. He wears black Ray-Ban glasses when not goggled. The silver-looped earrings from 12 years ago are gone, but the piercings haven’t closed. And then there are the tattoos.

    Read more here on Sports Illustrated

  • At the Faroese short course championships today, 3 more senior records and 2 juniors were posted. Ægir Klaksvík managed a junior record of 3:41.20 in the men’s 4×100 freestyle, Magnus Jákupsson from Tórshavn a senior and junior record of 55.94 in the men’s 100 IM, Ægir Klaksvík a senior record of 4:27.11 in the men’s 4×100 IM, and HS Tórshavn a senior record of 3:28.93 in the men’s 4×100 freestyle. See all results here.

    DSC02386

  • Magnus Jákupsson managed an (at least for us) impressive time of 55.94 in the 100 meter short course IM today at the Faroese Championships, beating Pál Joensen’s Faroese national record of 57.66 from the supersuited days of 2009, and his own Faroese junior record of 57.75 from the Danish short course championships in 2011. Pál was 2nd in 57.69, Magnus now ranked 4th among European juniors this season. Kudos.

    DSC_6547

  • Beautiful words by South Africa’s world record holder Cameron van der Burgh, in honor of his late rival and friend Alexander Dale Oen. A small excerpt here, read the rest here on Cameron’s blog.

    Thank you for inviting me into your home and sharing your life with me.
    Fortunately I have only good memories about you and these will fill the gap that is left behind.
    The late nights.
    The meaningful conversations.
    The uncontrollable laughs.
    The whale that nearly ate us.
    The races we had.

  • On April 21, 2012, 31-year-old Joe Salter from Pensacola, Florida completed a sprint triathlon consisting of 1/4 mile of swimming, 16.2 miles of bicycling and 4 miles of running in less than two hours while juggling, plasing 147th of 246 participants. Yes, juggling even when open water swimming, serious skills there.

    • Swim: 1/4 mile (402 meters) in 21min 39sec (appr. 3 drops)
    • Bike: 16.2 miles (26 kilometers) in 1hr 42sec (0 drops)
    • Run: 4 miles (6.4 kilometers) in 31min 29sec (0 drops)

  • Japan’s Olympic swimmers will prepare for this year’s London Games by undergoing altitude training as planned, despite the death of Alexander Dale Oen. Read Reuters.

    “We feel great sorrow at what happened (to Dale Oen),” JSF executive director Masafumi Izumi said. “But the autopsy results did not immediately link his sudden death to the altitude.

    “After holding an executive meeting we decided to take all necessary precautions and prepare the athletes in the safest way possible,” he added.

    “We will send doctors to monitor the swimmers and before going we will conduct electrocardiogram and heart echo tests under low-oxygen conditions.”

  • At the German Championships today, world 200m freestyle record-holder Paul Biedermann secured his spot on the German Olympic squad with a time of 1:46.07 in the 200 freestyle, ahead of also qualifying Clemens Rapp in 1:47.57. Marco Koch and Christian von Lehm qualified in the men’s 200 breaststroke with 2:09.48 and 2:10.07 respectively, while Silke Lippok just missed the German cut though making FINA A standard with a time of 1:57.93 in the women’s 200 freestyle. The Germans will have a second chance of making and rearranging the squad at the Debrecen 2012 Europeans, it seems. Read more here on SwimmingWorld Magazine.