Swimmer's Daily

  • Unveiled yesterday at CommunicAsia 2011 in Singapore, the Xperia Active is a compact smartphone targeting consumers with an active lifestyle, featuring a 3″ screen, the latest Android Gingerbread 2.3, a 5 MP camera with HD video functionality, and a powerful 1 GHz processor. Dust proof and water-resistant, it also uniquely incorporates wet finger tracking, to ensure the phone works perfectly when either the screen or a user’s fingers are wet. Pre-loaded with sports apps, users can set their training route using the built-in GPS, barometer and compass. And there is on-screen heart rate and pulse monitoring, enabled by ANT+ wireless networking technology. See press release.

    If all that geek data doesn’t convince you, then maybe Sharapova will

    (more…)

  • Rebecca AdlingtonI like this, Rebecca Adlington speaking out on MailOnline

    ‘A lot of people are talking about the Olympics, and they are so big, but so are the worlds.

    ‘I haven’t even qualified for the Olympics yet. People say “oh you’re there” and I have to tell them that I’m not. It’s a very tough process.

    ‘The World Championships are coming and I want to focus solely on this right now.’

    Adlington will race in the 200m in Shanghai, as well as her preferred 400m and 800m freestyle events. She will also compete in the 4 x 200m relay.

    Read more here on the Daily Mail

  • The 2008 Beijing Olympic champion, Cesar Cielo, plans to establish a professional swim training club in Sao Paulo, naming the scheme as Pro-16 to prepare for the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games. The scheme is likely to exceed a little more than USD 1$ million, involving Cielo and his relay team-members Santos, Cerdeira, Leonardo de Deus and Oliveira under the leadership of coach Alberto Silva, wit the mission to be successful at the 2016 Olympics in Brazil. Read more here on blogs.bettor.com.

    César Cielo após terminar a prova de revezamento para o Flamengo

  • After producing legendary 1500 freestyle swimmers, Kieren Perkins and Grant Hackett, Swimming Australia is now lacking a 1500 freestyle swimmer in their squad to compete at the 2011 World Championships in Shanghai. Robert Hurley, who succeeded for the selection standard of 1500 freestyle in 15:08.00 minutes last year, has abandoned the event this year, considering 200 and 400 freestyle to be more suitable for him. And so does Ryan Napoleon, another favourable candidate for the 1500 freestyle in the Australian team. *I* think that they fear the reaper, aka Sun Yang. Via blogs.bettor.com.

  • ÄŒavić and Rosolino are being a bit pessimistic, me thinks:

    “I think the whole swimming world has to get ready not to see another world record in the men’s sprints for a long time,” said Serbian butterfly specialist Milorad Cavic, the closest challenger to Michael Phelps’ record eight gold medals at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

    How long? According to Cavic and others, a decade.

    Milorad Čavić

  • hello!magazine.com reveals that other than the usual suspects like princes and princesses and Roger Moore and Mel Gibson, at least three swimmers get to attend the royal wedding of Charlene Wittstock and Prince Albert II of Monaco: Fellow South African Sarah Poewe, Australian swimmer Sophie Edington and ‘glamorous German swimming champ’ Franziska van Almsick, all three friends of the bride. No news on Ian Thorpe though, maybe someone feels threatened? :-)

    (I’ll be following this wedding like crazy, of course)

  • Ouch, Venezuelan Albert Subirats, who won gold in the 50 fly and silver in 100 fly at last year’s World Championships in Dubai, has been suspended by FINA for 1 year, after three “filing violations” within an 18-month period. Meaning that he failed to properly notify FINA of his time and place for drug-testing availability.

    And get this, Subirats contended that he has sent all of his proper whereabouts to the Venezuelan Swimming Federation in a timely manner, verified by him with email documentation, but that the VSF had failed to properly file that information with FINA. He even showed that he had expressed concern about the federation sending the information to FINA on time.

    Read more here on theswimmerscircle.com.

  • FINA today confirmed its 2011 World Cup Calendar, with Dubai (UAE) added as the first stage of the series on October 7-8, and Tokyo bringing the circuit to a close on November 12-13. Via SwimNews.com.

    The 2011 schedule:

    • Fri 7 -Sat 8 October Dubai (UAE)
    • Sat 15 – Sun 16 October Stockholm (SWE)
    • Tue 18 – Wed 19 October Moscow (RUS)
    • Sat 22 – Sun 23 October Berlin (GER)
    • Fri 4 – Sat 5 November Singapore (SIN)
    • Tue 8 – Wed 9 November Beijing (CHN)
    • Sat 12 – Sun 13 November Tokyo (JPN)

  • Yesterday, PetaPixel had this amazing story about photos recovered from a camera after spending 4 years in the ocean. The finder Peter Govaars posted the photos here on Flickr, and behold, after one single day the owner of the camera has been found. I don’t know what is more magical, the memory cards that can survive even being boiled and having nails driven through them, or the Internet.