Swimmer's Daily

  • Britta SteffenAfter having won the 50 and 100 meter freestyle crowns at both the Beijing 2008 Olympics and the Rome 2009 World Championships, Britta Steffen flopped at the Shanghai 2011 World Championships, ending up as #16 in the 100 freestyle and a no-show in the 50. In her opinion because the (supersuit era?) weight-training had hurt her stamina, wherefore she now abandons the weights:

    The 27-year-old Berliner flopped at the World Swimming Championships in Shanghai, China, in July when she failed to defend either the 50m or 100m world titles she won in Rome two years ago. The German then fled Shanghai after her embarrassing performance, which she blames on a weight-training programme that she says turned her into “a little body-builder.”

    “I was so muscular that after 50 metres, I didn’t have any strength left,” Steffen said having won two golds at the Beijing Olympic Games in 2008.

    “That is when stamina comes into play and I should have done a lot more training in that area.”

    Read TheNational.

  • Suraj Mall, eight, was unconscious in the deep end, but the guard and another young swimmer thought he was “pretending to be dead” before the alarm was raised. After being pulled out, he was taken to hospital where he was pronounced dead. Read the Mirror.

  • A sneak peak of Dr. Sanjay Gupta’s special “Diana Nyad’s Xtreme Dream” on CNN this Saturday night. Via blogs.cnn.com.

  • So that video from last Monday wasn’t the official version, only the original track. The official is out now, quite dark me thinks. Via Consequence of Sound.

    FRANK OCEAN [swim good] from nabil elderkin on Vimeo.

  • The Big Swim was part of the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad and took place at Camberwell Leisure Centre in London on Saturday 23 July and Barton Leisure Centre in Oxford on 24 July 2011. Admission was free. Looks like something that could (and should) be reproduced elsewhere.

    The Big Swim from Tine Bech on Vimeo.

  • Some interesting exercises here, courtesy of USA Swimming & Mike Mejia, M.S., C.S.C.S.: ‘X Squat’, ‘Jumping Jack to Reverse Lunge’, ‘Bootstrappers’, ‘Thoracic Rotations’, ‘Spiderman Elevation Change’, ‘Figure 4 Bridge’, ‘Windshield Wipers’ and ‘Standing Bird Dog’.

  • It is a marketing campaign for Panasonic Evolta batteries, but still interesting. Scroll forward to 3:50 to see its swimming style, straight arm stroke and recovery, a bit like Stefan Nystrand but with bent legs. Via Mashable.

  • Had tickets for this one, didn’t go because of time pressure and possible rain. Caught up with the rain back home here on the Faroe Islands.

  • 41-year-old John Caughlin lost an arm and part of his other hand when a boat ran over him with unprotected propeller during the Maui Channel swim on September 3. The Daily News of Open Water Swimming has this accident update on his situation, which unfortunately isn’t too good.

    Despite heroic efforts in an 11-hour operation, the surgeons were unable to salvage John’s right arm and it was removed above the elbow. The left arm was reconstructed; however there was extensive damage to the left hand. John’s left index finger, thumb, and a portion of the hand had been traumatically amputated by the propeller.

    The remaining three fingers sustained multiple fractures and severe lacerations. Just 4 days after the incident, John underwent another surgery to reconstruct what remains of his left hand. Additional surgical procedures and grafts will be needed to continue the reconstruction. John will remain hospitalized in Maui for another week and will then have the opportunity to return to California for continued treatment.

    Without the use of either of his hands, John will require 24/7 care for quite some time, and has a long, hard recovery ahead of him including surgeries and rehabilitation over the next twelve months and beyond.

    People can help out by contributing money here on PayPal, or sending cards and letters of encouragement to his sister, Jennifer Dorsey at: 1210 Green Orchard Place, Encinitas, CA 92024, U.S.A. Read more here.