The Red Swamp Crayfish, which are native to America, have rocketed in numbers in the past few months at two ponds in Hampstead Heath, north London (UK), now estimated to be more than 5,000 ‘very defensive’ of their territory, with powerful claws. Now the regular nude dippers are being warned to beware of the crayfish, because, you know, claws and nudity don’t mix that well. Read The Telegraph.
In the inaugural episode of Ask Duncan, British Gas Swimming’s Facebook community put their questions to Olympic gold medalist and all-round swimming legend, Duncan Goodhew.
It is all over the news, USA Swimming has banned Hall of Fame coach Rick Curl for life for an improper relationship with a teenage swimmer in the 1980s, who ran one of USA’s largest swim clubs Curl-Burke near Washington, D.C., and coached 1996 and 2000 Olympic gold medalist Tom Dolan, the club most notable swimmer today the 15-year-old Katie Ledecky, who won gold in the 800 at the London 2012 Olympics. Read for instance ABC News, ESPN, Washington Post, USA Today.
Well, now Noah Rucker, a former coach at Madison High School in Vienna, was indicted by a grand jury on Monday, charged in June with three felony accounts of “indecent liberties with a child while in a custodial or supervisory relationship”, for allegedly having sex with a 17-year-old girl on the varsity swim team at Madison on at least five occasions in 2001. Most recently, Rucker coached for the Curl-Burke Swim Club (CUBU), but was removed prior to being arrested in June. Read Reach For The Wall
The Curl-Burke Swim Club is now changing its name to the Nation’s Capitol Swim Club (NCAP), go figure.
It was back to school for Paralympic gold medal winner and world record holder Josef Craig Mondayโ but the cheers are not subsiding. The swimmerโs return to St Josephโs RC Comprehensive School in Hebburn was marked by a heroโs welcome for the 15-year-old โ complete with a red carpet and arriving in the Mayorโs official car. Read The Shields Gazette
Responding to Seth MacFarlane’s impersonation of Ryan Lochte on “Saturday Night Live” this weekend, the Olympic swimmer says the actor got him “all wrong.” Read for instance CBS News, Extra, She Knows and College News
“I think they got me all wrong on there,” Lochte told Extra at the ALMA Awards. “The whole skit that was from when I first started doing interviews like 6 or 7 years ago. I didn’t know what to really say doing interviews but now I’m more relaxed.”
A school of mullets passed and seemed to surround a beachgoer about 75 yards off shore in Kill Devil Hills, NC. Fortunately, he had his waterproof camera with him. Now, I think I would have hurried to get out of the water, because when fish behave like that, surely ‘something’ is chasing them :-)