Swimmer's Daily

  • Nice one Brazil, serve the journalists the opportunity to write headlines like this, followed by these intro words: “A damaging drugs scandal overhangs the world swimming championships in Shanghai, where a misfiring Michael Phelps will try to reignite his Olympic form.”

    It could have been this, quote Swimming World Magazine’s John Long:

    “The 2009 World Championships were a joke with the more than 40 world records,” Swimming World Magazine’s John Long told AFP.

    “None of that was pure. But we’ve moved on and the sport is where it should be these days, based on talent and work ethic.”

    But no, now it is the drugs, the perhaps dodgy handling of pharmaceuticals, the long list of already banned Brazilians, and the trying to get away with banning your best, despite of a clear and confirmed doping infringement. Bringing us all down.

  • There are these rumors growing on the web, that Charlene tried to flee just before the wedding, because of claims popping up that Prince Albert II had fathered up to two more children to add to the two illegitimate ones he already has. Charlene is said to be desperate to find out if Prince Albert has been unfaithful to her, and now MailOnline writes about rumors that they don’t even stay in the same hotel during their honeymoon in South Africa. There is talk about the 700-year-old Grimaldi curse being placed on Albert’s ancestors. I don’t know.

  • Funny story here on wbez.org, about Chicago swimming legend Johnny Weissmuller famous for being first man under the minute in 100 meter freestyle, and for his role as Tarzan in the 1930-ies and 1940-ies.

    In 1958, years after his last movie, Weissmuller was at a golf outing in Cuba when his party was suddenly captured by rifle-toting rebels. Johnny smiled at them, then let loose his famous movie jungle-yell. The rebels stopped, smiled back, and began calling out “Tarzan! Tarzan!” Then they gave Johnny an armed escort back to his hotel.

    Johnny Weissmuller and Maureen O’Sullivan – Tarzan, the Ape Man (1932)

  • I’m deeply impressed by this new Dutch swimming site called “Mijn Zwemheld” (“My Swimming Hero”), launched on Saturday 9 July during the send-off and departure of the Shanghai 2011 World Cup participants from the Netherlands. It is an online platform especially designed for social media, with profiles of currently 44 elite Dutch aquatic athletes, their best results, photos, tweets, upcoming competition schedule and more. YouTube videos, Facebook account, Flickr photos, you name it. In Dutch yes, but Google Chrome can translate on the fly :-)

  • Tórshavn Swim Club in the Faroe Islands is seeking a Head Coach, who will coach the elite teams and supervise the competitive sector of the club in whole ensuring that the coaching of all teams is consistent and applies to the overall philosophy of the club. See hs.fo.

    DSC04510

    Currently the competitive swimmers of the club compete in National, Nordic and European competitions with some of the swimmers highly ranked in their respective European age group. The swim club aims to be the best in the country, within a time frame of 2 years to have swimmers among the best in the Nordic countries and within 4 years among the best in Europes junior levels.

    The job advertisement in whole can be downloaded here: Head Coach Job Opening

  • Hydronalix‘s robotic water rescue device E.M.I.L.Y. (Emergency Integrated Lifesaving Lanyard) is a remote control device that can travel at 40 miles per hour to rescue swimmers in distress. Using an Android phone or tablet, a lifeguard on the shore can send this buoy out to the rescue, and the distressed swimmer can then either let EMILY drag them back, or they can hang onto her and wait for a real person to finish the rescue. Smart! Via knoxnews.com.

    Here is a video interview with Hydronalix founder Tony Mulligan, at the Google IO 2011. The thing has onboard camera, read sonar and everything, for you to watch and navigate with on a smartphone. They are planning on it to one day be able to auto-navigate to the distressed swimmer, and it is not even particularly expensive. Via thedroidguy.com.

  • We’ve heard about the Scotland incident, where a swarm of jellyfish forced a nuclear plant to shut down, because they swam into the seawater filters and blocked the cooling. Now SCAQ writes about the same stuff happening in Japan and Israel, I think it is an epidemy!

    Jelly Fish

  • An insightful video here from the joint Icelandic and Faroese training camp in Singapore, preparing for the Shanghai World Championships. A lot of the speak is in Faroese and Icelandic, but lucky for you, their coach Jacky Pellerin is French (former coach of Franck Esposito), and the communication with him therefore in English. The subject is all the way through the immense heat, sun and humidity in Singapore, compared to the North Atlantic, and that exercise Pál is doing is a 10 minutes static lift.

  • So our guy Magnus Jákupsson from the Faroe Islands qualified for his second semi-final at the 2011 European Junior Swimming Championships in Belgrade today, almost reaching the final with a 26.76 and 10th spot of the 16. He is young, one more year as a junior, so he will get there next year :-)