French swimmer Amaury Leveaux having his photo taken with fan at the 2008 European Short Course Championships in Rijeka, Croatia. First man under 45 seconds in the 100 freestyle … Okay, in a supersuit, but it was excellent nevertheless. And now it looks like he is back, with a 1:46.72, 2nd and Olympic qualifying time in the 200 free at the French Nationals today, yay !
This sounds like the stuff that severe seasickness is made of:
He calls it a vertical torpedo. The axis of his 24-foot-long craft is upright rather than horizontal, speeding the plunge. His goal is to fall and rise as quickly as possible so he can maximize his time investigating the dark seabed. He wants to prowl the bottom for six hours. …
Just as bullets are spun to steady their flight, Mr. Cameron’s craft rotates on its vertical axis — another first. In a test dive, he has already broken the modern depth record for piloted vehicles, going down more than five miles.
Read more here on The New York Times
Some call it the final frontier. While humans have breached the limitations of land, air and space, the underwater world remains largely untouched. Read more here on ABC News
Athletes’ Performance, the Andrews Institute and HydroWorx are hosting the first organized Underwater Marathon to raise funds to help heal wounded Special Forces soldiers on Sunday, Sept. 9, 2012 at Tröegs Brewery in Hershey, PA. The marathon will allow individuals and corporate teams to raise money for the Eagle Fund by running 5K, 10K, half-marathon or marathon distances on HydroWorx X80 underwater treadmills. Via PRWeb, learn more about the Eagle Fund at www.underwatermarathon.com
Video from James Magnussen’s 100 freestyle post race interview at the Australian Trials. Reporter says (@0:30): “Just pause it here as you’re coming into the wall, we’ll just get the boys to pause it. How important is the turn at this stage?”. Magnussen is being all polite and talking about ‘momentum’ and stuff … but seriously, if he didn’t turn, it could be catastrophic! :-P #beentheredonethat
Here it is, Ian Thorpe’s 200 meter freestyle semi-final at the Australian Olympic Trials, in full length. Painful to watch, and to listen to those reporters going “Ian-Ian-Ian” even though they have 7 other great Aussies in that pool.
Found by Ricky Berens
[blackbirdpie url=”https://twitter.com/#!/RickyBerens/status/181891905427226624″]
There I was, about to be beaten to a pulp by the former Danish 200 meter butterfly champion, now president of the Faroese swimming federation, the coach of Pál Joensen, and the guy who used to be able to do 100 pushups in 1 minute (and still probably can). Must work on my start, my turn, my kick and maybe everything :-)
Trials of a lifeguard alert system called Sensa will begin in two weeks at several hotels in Dubai, if successful to be adopted by several of the emirate’s 20,000 pools. Swimmers are given wristbands containing a sensor that alerts the lifeguard’s pager if held deeper than 60cm underwater for more than 20 seconds. The complete package costs about 100,000 Dirham for one pool (US$ 27,225), but the makers believe the system in return will allow for more cost-efficient lifeguard staffing levels.
The Swimming Pool Safety Company also has an underwater video system adopted by pools in Britain and the Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Sports Complex in Dubai, used for the Dubai 2010 World Championships, but company owner Rob White says cultural sensitivities mean that wristbands were a better option than cameras in the Middle East. Read The National
The day is getting ever closer, when James Cameron will go for the second ever dive down into the deepest abyss available, according to one commenter on Facebook as soon as weather conditions are calm enough to allow them to navigate to the dive site and make the descent.
