Swimmer's Daily

  • When Nikki Dryden was a successful swimmer for Canada, she had little time to focus on the financial affairs of FINA. However, now as a New York-based humans right attorney, she feels our sport’s governing body is only becoming richer, more secretive and less accountable. And yes, the numbers are quite worrying – with 22 full time staff, an administrative budget for 2008 of $3.3 million, FINA ended the year of 2005 with excess fund USD 9 million, but spent just USD 300,000 on development programmes. Basic safeguards as equipping lifeguards with binoculars are being compromised, while at the same time, athletes are increasingly being forced to wear the logos of FINA and its sponsors. Read playthegame.org.

  • See live streaming schedule here on fina.org and go here to see the actual FINA TV player. Looks like they are going to broadcast all World Cup events, starting with the World Cup leg in Dubai this weekend “in all countries except: Mexico, Italy, Brazil, Russia, Hungary, Sweden, France, Romania, Croatia, Georgia, Sweden, Middle East, USA, China, Poland Singapore and South Africa.”

  • Actually quite impressive when they get around to it.

  • OK, maximum speed is only 8 to 10 kph, but then again, who can swim faster than that ? Joystick steering for those of us who grew up with the Commodore 64. Designed to accommodate three people, able to float on shallow waters of 1 meter depth or more, outboard engine concealed within its body, with a 360 degrees turbine that allows it to spin in place. Not particularly seaworthy though. See www.waterbuggystore.com, via gizmag

  • Today it is confirmed that a Danish TV crew will join us at the World Cup leg in Stockholm, follow Pál there and then come back with us to the Faroe Islands, to film how he lives and trains in his hometown Vágur. He’s had the competing channel TV2 visit him in Vágur before, but now it is the national broadcasting company DR preparing a series of London 2012 Olympic profiles.

  • Wow, the newest Garmin Forerunner 910XT is not only a runner’s GPS watch like my old, trusty Forerunner 305, but now also offers swim metrics like distance, stroke identification, stroke count and your ‘SWOLF’ score (swim-golf, an estimation of your swimming efficiency by adding your time with your strokes, see for instance this video). Water resistant of course, and with a battery that is good for 20 hours of use. A bike mount can be purchased for, and it also includes ANT+ support for connecting to wireless sensors like a heart rate monitor. Via slashgear

  • These past few weeks have been quite humbling for us in Faroese swimming, with people acknowledging the little or lot we have managed to do with miniscule resources. Pál was invited to join the Europe team in the “Duel in the Pool” against USA in December, we had 4 young swimmers (and a coach) doing well at a LEN open water training camp in Spain, and I got to be in the “World/Regional Swimmers of the Year” panel of SwimmingWorld Magazine. Sweet.

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  • Someone has peed too much in that pool

    Face Your Fears – Water from Changing Faces on Vimeo.

  • Exciting stuff, our guy Pál Joensen will be competing against Paul Biedermann in the 400 free, and is the favorite in the 1500. Other interesting names are for instance Geoff Huegill and Eamon Sullivan from Australia, Therese Alshammar and Stefan Nystrand from Sweden, Ingvild Snildal and Alexander Dale Oen from Norway, David Verraszto and Zjuzsanna Jakabos from Hungary, Chad Le Clos from South Africa, Pawel Korzeniowski from Poland, Velimir Stjepanovic from Serbia, Naoya Tomita from Japan, Tyler McGill from USA and Sun Ye and Lu Ying from China. See the startlist here on simforbundet.se.

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    I’ll be attending myself with Pál, Jón and 4 of our younger talents, so expect to see more material here then. The World Cup leg in Stockholm is in my view a fantastic event, not only because of good competition facilities, but also because we all live tight and cozy in the nearby hotel. A huge inspiration for our upcoming swimmers, to be having breakfast with the likes of Alexander Dale Oen and Jeanette Ottesen.