Swimmer's Daily

  • Mutual of Omaha recently launched Swim Star 2012, a unique swimming game app for iPhone and iPad, in anticipation of the U.S. Olympic Swim Trials, which will take place in the company’s hometown of Omaha, Nebraska. in June, and the Summer Olympic Games in London. Swim Star 2012 allows players to select an avatar and their preferred swim stroke to compete for a place on the podium at every event. Players can progress from beginner level to qualifying, regional, nationals and world levels. Swim Star 2012 has GameCenter integration that allows players to post times to a leaderboard for each stroke. It also offers Facebook and Twitter integration to share accomplishments with friends. See iTunes and swimstargame.com, via MarketWatch

  • Chinese athletes including at least 196 competitors under China’s National Aquatics Centre are swearing off meat ahead of the London Olympics out of fear that domestic pork, beef and lamb could contain substances banned under anti-doping rules, a report said Wednesday. They are instead relying on protein powder and fish to meet the protein needs. Authorities are particularly concerned that athletes could unwittingly consume clenbuterol, which is banned for food production in China but has been found in contaminated pork. Read more here on Bangkok Post.

  • Libby Trickett“I’ve had roller-coaster rides at both of the Olympics (I’ve competed in), I understand to some extent how Olympics can pan out, generally it’s not the way we expect them to pan out,” Trickett said.

    “The biggest advice I would give to any athlete is to expect the unexpected – because the Olympics (are) everything and more than you can ever imagine …

    “I’m excited to not only experience that again first-hand, but obviously to see it for the guys who are the newies on the team.”

    Read more here on ABC News, photo courtesy of Liz Higgs, CC BY-ND 2.0

  • Courtesy of RT

  • A photo from the FLOT learn-to-swim program enrollment back in September 2008, here in Toftir, Faroe Islands. We’ve all been there ! :-)

    Watch your back !

  • TV4 Sport Sweden met Ryan Lochte at the Dual in The Pool in December 2011, apparently you have to wait three months to get a 10 minute interview with the American swim star.

  • Disclaimer: I don’t understand Russian well enough to be absolutely sure in my translation here, but it looks like Yana Martynova from Tatarstan was the first and only Russian to qualify for the Olympics yesterday, with a winning time of 4:38.69 in the 400 IM, exceeding the FINA A selection cut by 3.06 seconds. Egor Degtyarev was only 0.02 from the selection cut (and FINA A qualifying time) of 3:49.92, but was still happy with his first Russian Championships win, while Elena Sokolova was more unhappy with her 4:12.29 in the women’s 400 freestyle. Read russwimming.ru

  • Wow, turns out that penguins use a “coat of air bubbles” as lubricant for when rocketing toward the surface at 19 km an hour (that’s 100 meters in about 19 seconds), enabling small species like Adelia penguins to leap 2-3 meters out of the water, and the big Emperor penguins to reach heights of 20-45 cm … enough to leap out of holes in the ice. And that the air doesn’t come from the lungs, but from beneath the feathers.

    Penguins have great control over their plumage, Professor Davenport tells me.

    They raise their feathers to fill their plumage with air, then dive underwater. As the birds descend, the water pressure increases, decreasing the volume of the trapped air. At a depth of 15-20 metres, for example, the air volume has shrunk by up to 75%.

    The birds now depress their feathers, locking them around the new, reduced air volume.

    The penguin then swims vertically up as fast as it can, and the air in the plumage expands and pours through the feathers.

    “Because the feathers are very complex, the pores through which the air emerges are very small so the bubbles are initially tiny. They coat the outer feather surface.”

    Crucially, this coat of small air bubbles acts as a lubricant, drastically reducing drag, enabling the penguins to reach lift-off speeds.´

    Still, doesn’t help much when on land

    Read more here on the BBC, slippery slope penguin found on Nothing To Do With Arbroath

  • Awesome new video from P&G