Germany’s Paul Biedermann on top of the medal podium at the Budapest 2010 European Swimming Championships, having won the men’s 200 freestyle in 1:46.06. Russia’s Nikita Lobintsev 2nd in 1:46.51 and the Netherlands’s Sebastiaan Verschuren 3rd in 1:46.91. See result list here.
Team Coco’s resident gamer Bley introduces the maestro to Michael Phelps’ new competitive swimming video game “Push The Limit.” Conan then reviews the game on a scale of 1 to 45 based on his extensive ignorance of video games in general. See Team Coco
Israeli model and under.me designer Bar Refaeli demonstrating her underwater skills. We remember her from that ad with Michael Phelps, among other things. Via The Improper.
Malaysian media The Star has this story on how the Olympic dream is over for 6 Malaysian swimmers, caught between having made the Olympic invitation time and not being invited by FINA. As swimming coach Paul Birmingham Thomas puts it:
โWe also couldnโt apply for wildcards as this wasnโt allowed as we had swimmers who already bettered the Olympic qualifying standards in the first place.
โThis is ludicrous as we are deemed not good enough to join the top ranked swimmers at the Olympics while those from countries ranked at the bottom make it.
The 30-year-old actress Jessica Biel has spent a week time in Puerto Rico, where her fiance Justin Timberlake has been filming his new movie “Runner, Runner”, to take advanced PADI diving courses. If I understand it correctly, meaning she can dive down to 30 meters now. My guess is that her speciality is hot water dives :-)
Incredibly realistic except for the budgie smugglers and the high-cut swimming suits. For PS3, Xbox and PC, see www.olympicvideogames.com
At the U.S. Olympic Trials yesterday evening, Rebecca Soni and Micah Lawrence qualified for the women’s 200 breaststroke, with a time of 2:21.13 and 2:23.03 respectively. Ryan Lochte and Tyler Clary took the men’s 200 backstroke in 1:54.54 and 1:54.88, Michael Phelps took the men’s 200 IM in 1:54.84 ahead of Ryan Lochte in 1:54.93, and in the women’s 100 freestyle, Jessica Hardy and Missy Franklin took the individual spots in 53.96 and 54.15, with Allison Schmitt, Lia Neal, Amanda Weir and Natalie Coughlin qualifying for the 4×100 relay. See all results from day 6 here.
Last night at about midnight after having swum for more than 40 hours, 49-year-old Penny Palfrey was pulled out of her swim from Cuba to Florida “due to a strong southeast current that made it impossible for her to continue her swim.” Read for instance the Washington Post.
Masters swimming is in its infancy here in the Faroe Islands, with the annual Faroese championships only two years old, and competitions scarce. We are also not really ‘there’ yet when it comes to making this part of competitive really serious, proven for instance by the fact that we typically switch roles and let the young swimmers be officials, and hesitate started registering national masters records and stuff. But that being said, the young officials are really enthusiastic and probably just as good as the rest of us :-)
