The Icelandic Swimming Federation announced tonight that 17-year-old Eygló Ósk Gústafsdóttir is their first swimmer to qualify for the London 2012 Games, with a 2:10.38 in the women’s 200 backstroke at the Icelandic Championships right now, the FINA A cut being 2:10.84. This is also a new Icelandic record, the old one Eygló’s 2:12.33 from the Spanish Championships in Malaga in March.
Danish World and European champion Jeanette Ottesen Gray having a peaceful moment before warmup at the Szczecin 2011 European Short Course Championships. Even world champs have to settle for a spot among the luggage sometimes :-)
Jessica Hardy talking about the tough ride since Beijing 2008. Speedo sponsored or not, this journalist Matt Mason is doing an incredible job getting these talks down to earth. And by the way, USA Swimming: “I got sent home at 5 o’clock in the morning, one morning from the Olympic camp without saying goodbye to anyone”. Real classy!
According to the Australian Swim Team on Facebook, a total of seven individual Australian Age records (plus relay records) have fallen at the 2012 Australian Age Championships until now, meet closing tomorrow, including 4 by the hands of 13-year-old Kyle Chalmers from Norwood South Australia. Watch him break the Boys 12-13 100 freestyle record in the video below, with a scorching 52.29 ahead of the rest in 55+ seconds. Via simma.nu/no
At the Eindhoven Swim Cup tonight, Sweden’s Sarah Sjöström scorched the women’s 100 meter freestyle semifinal, with a time of 53.29 ahead of Ranomi Kromowidjojo in 53.60 and Marleen Veldhuis in 54.15. Julia Hassler from Switzerland won the women’s 400 freestyle in 4:14.03, Britain’s David Carry the men’s 400 freestyle in 3:50.52, Wendy v.d. Zanden the women’s 200 IM in 2:13.14 and Sebas van Lith the men’s 200 IM in 2:02.64, this meet apparently the last-chance London 2012 qualification meet for the Dutch. Read SwimNews and SwimmingWorld Magazine, see all results here.
The Rome 2009 World Aquatics Championships photo crew repositioning themselves at the pool. No idea why, must have been coming straight from a meeting, or switching to/from the 50m events or whatever.
Two of the greatest swimmers ever interviewing each other in a very straight-forward way. Pure gold ! :-)
According to simma.nu/no, Norway will send 16 swimmers to the 2012 European Championships in Debrechen, Hungary, next month, including Ingvild Snildal but not Alexander Dale Oen. Snildal qualified for the London Olympics at the Amsterdam Swim Cup in March, while Dale Oen qualified at the Shanghai world championships last summer. They hope to have more qualifying now at the Europeans, biggest expectations are for Sara Nordenstam and Cecilie Johannesen, and the women’s 4×100 free relay.
Norways Debrecen 2012 team:
The Norwegian team is on altitude camp in Flagstaff, Arizona until March 3rd. In other news off Aftenposten.no, Alexander Dale Oen is recovering nicely from his shoulder problems, now almost at full strength but being held back when it comes to speed work, as not to provoke a relapse. Via simma.nu/no
In April 2012, the British Gas GBR Swim Team took part in a Training Camp at the Aquatics Centre, London ahead of London 2012. Find out what happened when they took time out from training to answer questions from Facebook fans.
