Swimmer's Daily

  • Ernest Harvey Shepherd from Augusta, Georgia thought he was communicating with a 14-year-old girl when he was suggesting “skinny-dipping and lunch”, offering to bring wine coolers and to go to an Econo Lodge, before the FBI Cyber Crimes Child Exploitation Task Force finally busted him upon arrival at a prearranged location to engage in sexual acts with invented person. Parents of a 16-year-old had notified the police in May after they saw “questionable online communications” on Facebook between their daughter and Shepherd, who had met the teen while working as an official at swim meets. Resulting in investigation that identified 25 other girls between age 12 and 17 whom Shepherd had inappropriate communication with online. Now he got 10 years, 10 months in federal prison, and 20 years of supervised release, with requirement to register as a sex offender. Read The Augusta Chronicle via The Swimmers Circle

  • Nice list here on TravelSupermarket, via Neatorama. Marina Bay Sands in Singapore is there, of course, with its pool stretching across the skyscrapers, and Bláa Lónið (the Blue Lagoon) in Iceland. But the one taking the price is Golden Nugget in Las Vegas, with its water slide going through a shark tank.

  • Menzies said yesterday she did not want to second-guess her former pupil and did not have any knowledge of his training regimen under respected coach Gennadi Touretski. But she had been surprised that he had made the decision to come back to a very different swimming landscape so late. Read The Sydney Morning Herald, via Gold Medal Mel on Facebook.

    “”You always felt there was unfinished business, but it was surprising in that you would have thought he would have made it earlier,” Menzies said. ”If he’s done everything in his power to do the right things, then the results will speak for themselves but it’s a different swimming world now. Knowing the work that he did to get to that level [at his peak], he has to do that and more.””

    In other news from that Sydney Morning Herald story, Michael Klim is feeling a lot better, after having suffered a flare-up of his troublesome shoulder before Christmas. So he’ll swim the 50 and 100 freestyle this weekend.

    ”It’s just come good and turned the corner on the weekend,” Klim said. ”It was really sort of touch-and-go … I don’t think I’ve lost anything at the moment.”

  • The Danish Olympic Committee announced its London 2012 collection earlier this week, including formal clothing, sports wear and ‘Denmark wear’ developed by designers of official partner Bestseller’s fashion brands Jack & Jones and Vero Moda. The keen eye can pick out Jeanette Ottesen and Rikke Møller in the track suit group shot from around 1:26, and then later both getting soaked from around 2:18. Plus Rikke apparently being really much involved in the design process also :-)

  • Pál Joensen and Jón Bjarnason survey the Szczecin 2011 European Short Course Championships competition pool, before first training practice.

    Pál and Jón survey the Szczecin 2011 competition pool

  • I don’t know, somehow I doubt that this was what Steve Jobs envisioned. The New York Times says $40, soon available in the US, from Aryca.

  • Update, not ‘tomorrow’ (as in Thursday), but on Friday …

    It has been six years since Ian Thorpe and Michael Klim last went head-to-head in a competitive 100m freestyle race, but tomorrow they’ll do it again, returning to the same Melbourne venue for the Victorian state titles where Thorpe pipped Klim at the nationals in 2006 with a 49.28 against 49.38. But, Klim might have a problem, as the telegraph writes:

    A decision will be made on Thursday whether 34-year-old Michael Klim, another Olympic champion on the comeback trail, will swim at the state titles after suffering a setback with a shoulder injury.

    Read also The Sydney Morning Herald

  • Read SwimmingWorld Magazine: Bryan Woodward, head coach of the Gator Swim Club in Gainesville, Florida, was arrested this Monday on charges of the use of a computer to solicit a child for sex and for travel to seduce a child for sex. He is currently being held in Osceola County Jail, but will be heading to home confinement to await trial.

    See also Orlando Sentinel and The Gainesville Sun

  • 16-year-old Missy Franklin has said no to a lot of money these past months, according to the Wall Street Journal more than $130,000, because if she accepts them, she will be ineligible to compete at the NCAA. No to $20,000 for winning the USA Swimming’s Grand Prix series trophy last summer, $50,000 for finishing second overall in the FINA World Cup series in November, plus $23,000 for winning several races. It is estimated that she could “pick up a few hundred thousand dollars” in the run-up to the Olympics, so it is no wonder that her parents called for a family meeting when facing the FINA World Cup series $73,000, to make sure she had some perspective. With them at the same time having to pay up some $13,000 to follow her to the Shanghai 2011 World Championships, and be her agent as NCAA rules won’t even allow her one of those.

    “I was able to say, ‘You know the $73,000 you just made in four days of swimming? You see how hard Mommy has to work to earn that in an entire year?’” said D.A. Franklin, who works with developmentally disabled patients. “Because I don’t think you quite get it when you’re 16. You don’t understand what $73,000 or $100,000 really means.”

    Read more here and here in the Wall Street Journal.