Swimmer's Daily

  • Australian swimming head coach Leigh Nugent today defended the financial support given to comeback stars like Ian Thorpe after rumblings within the team about favoritism ahead of the Olympics. Via AFP

    “I really can’t understand why they would (be upset),” Nugent told reporters ahead of crucial London Olympic selection trials in Adelaide this week.

    “These guys are multiple gold medallists of recent times, multiple world record holders.

    “They’re going to contribute, if they make it, to the performance of our team and maybe help some of the other members on the team with relay medals, bring experience to the team, stability to the team with that experience.

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  • Spanish swimmer Aschwin Wildeboer Faber and his Dutch father Paulus Wildeboer, head coach of the Danish national team, at the Stockholm leg of the 2010 FINA/Arena World Cup circuit. Checking split-times or whatever after prelims on November 6th, 2010.

    Aschwin and Paulus Wildeboer at the Stockholm 2010 World Cup

  • Interesting news here on FINA.org:

    The Bureau has confirmed the creation of a Facilities Committee, formed by the following members:

    • Joaquin Pujol (ESP), Chairman
    • Kate McKnight (GBR), Honorary Secretary
    • Per Rune Eknes (NOR), Member
    • Mick Nelson (USA), Member
    • Member from China, to be confirmed.

    The aim of this Committee will be to deal and update the FINA Facilities Rules to be considered at the FINA General Congress in July 2013 in Barcelona (ESP) and to advice on the construction of aquatic centres (swimming pools).

    On a more somber note, for the FINA Technical Open Water Swimming Committee, Mr. Andrea Prayer (ITA) has been nominated as new acting Honorary Secretary, in place of the suspended Mr. Flavio Bomio.

  • Though Michael gained millions of fans during the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, his biggest fan has been there since the beginning. Who could it be?

  • Disclaimer: All translations here are done by me (Rókur í Jákupsstovu) from Danish on Ingeniøren. Please read that text if you can, to avoid possible misunderstandings.

    Swedish scientist and anti-doping grand old man Professor Bengt Saltin is still able to provoke people, despite of formally having retired after 40 years in the business. This week WADA’s Science Director Dr. Olivier Rabin hurried do defend his organization after scolding criticism by Saltin and others in the British Journal of Pharmacology, stating that blood doping practices are likely to remain for several years to come (with current anti-doping control practice), and that IOC’s promise of the London 2012 Games being the cleanest ever is “faint”. Read (in Danish) Ingeniøren

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  • Dara Torres who turns 45 next month is finding it slower going these days as she attempts yet another comeback in pursuit of making her sixth Olympic swim team this summer.

    “I am middle-aged so that makes it more difficult,” she said in a rare concession to the passage of time. “When I had this knee surgery, having to do all the rehab the year I had it put me behind training this time. You have to make sure it doesn’t mess with your head because this is taking much longer to come back from than in the past.”

    She is doing some of the things she did to prepare for Beijing, but has added some work with a naturopathic doctor, eating more throughout the day and consuming natural supplements such as black licorice root.

    “I can’t do all out in the morning. I can’t recover,” she said this week by phone from her home in Florida. “Everything is about pacing but going fast enough to get into the next round (of a meet). I get three-quarters through the race and my body just shuts down.”

    Read more here on The Washington Post

    Dara Torres, after winning the silver

    (Photo of Dara Torres courtesy of Bryan Allison, CC BY-SA 2.0)

  • Swimming fans can expect to see records broken at the London Olympics, according to Britain’s head coach Dennis Pursley.

    “You may not get as many as you normally would had it not been for the anomaly we had with the suits a couple of years ago but there certainly will be some records broken. I fully expect that to be the case.”

    Double Olympic champion Rebecca Adlington agrees.

    “Oh definitely,” … “The Olympics brings that out in people…the four-year cycle is all structured down to the Olympics and I think that especially with this crowd that will be there in the summer, it’s just going to be amazing.”

    Read more here on Eurosport

  • SEGA is producing the official video game of the Olympic Games – London 2012â„¢ – to be released in June for Playstation 3, PC and Xbox 360. Here is a video showing the interior of the Aquatics Centre, looking very impressive with Omega OSB 11 starting blocks and everything.

  • At the USA Swimming Columbus Grand Prix in Ohio yesterday, Michael Phelps won the 200 butterfly in 1:55.32, bettering the 4-year-old meet record of 1:57.40 that Kaio Almeida swam in 2008. The 200 fly is just 1 of 4 individual events that Phelps has won gold in at both the 2004 and 2008 Olympics (the others being the 100 butterfly, the 200 IM and the 400 IM), but the one that Phelps himself has named as his ‘signature event’. If Phelps should win one of these at the London Olympics, he will be the first male swimmer ever to win individual gold medals for the same event at three successive Olympics (Dawn Fraser and Krisztina Egerszegi having done it in the women’s division).