A fun dryland group pushup exercise demonstrated here by Suðuroyar Svimjifelag‘s Sólrun Kjærbo (12), Kristina Elin Thomsen (13), Tanja Skaalum (14) and Guðrun Mortensen (14). Guðrun holds the Faroese women’s 50 freestyle (senior) short course record of 26.04, Kristina Elin the 100 butterfly junior record of 1:05.45.
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Ryan Lochte’s back to breast IM transition turn
Maybe a bit old footage here, given that he is wearing a full body suit, but still a good demonstration of this tricky turn. Rules are as you undoubtedly know, that you have to end your backstroke on your back before turning and starting the breaststroke, which is why he touches the wall ever so slightly.
Here is Eric Shanteau doing the same turn with more of a somersault, where again you have to take care that you are more on your breast than your back when starting the breaststroke. Courtesy of GoSwim :-)
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Video: Phelps winning the Shanghai 2011 men’s 100 butterfly
A review here in extremely good quality, including ultra slow motion footage and the medal ceremony. Winner Michael Phelps (USA) in 50.71, silver Konrad Czerniak (POL) in 51.15 and bronze Tyler McGill (USA) in 51.26.
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Swimming may improve bone resistance to impact
Taiwanese professor Huang Tsang-hai made rats swim for an hour a day, five days a week for eight weeks, and then measured and compared their bone mineral density (BMD) and bone mineral content (BMC) with a control group. The swimming rats lost both BMD and BMC, possibly because of weight loss, but when the femurs of the rats were broken, it took longer to completely sever the bones of those in the swimming group than in the control group. Read Focus Taiwan
(River rat, picture courtesy of Karen Morris, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
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Roland Schoeman tears forearm muscle, out for 4-6 weeks
Bad news on Roland Schoeman’s twitter account, he has somehow torn his pronator teres, putting him out of the water for 4-6 weeks. Via The Swimmers Circle.http://twitter.com/#!/Rolandschoeman/status/151221752830230528
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Stephanie Rice breaks up with Wallabies player Quade Cooper
After 12 months together the relationship between Stephanie Rice and Australian rugby union player Quade Cooper is now officially over. “Stephanie has officially split with Quade and will be focusing 100 per cent on her Olympic preparation,” Rice’s manager, Titus Day, told Confidential. Sources close to the couple say the split has been coming for a while and that they both moved out of Rice’s $1.265 million, four-bedroom house near Brisbane back in October, Rice having problems with finding a new tenant since. Read more here on Couriermail.com.au.
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Thorpe back in love with swimming, aims for time not medals, beyond London
Mellow talk with Olympic legend Ian Thorpe here on The Australian, in Switzerland shortly after ‘disappointing’ at the Italian Open in Riccione. Lot’s of interesting details, like that he hasn’t read anything about himself since 2000-01, that he doesn’t compete against others but himself, that he (as Cotterell) thinks he’s left his comeback a bit too late, that he doesn’t expect to swim extremely fast before the Australian trials in March, but that he despite of this situation still expects to make the gap by then. That he is aiming for improving his own times rather than winning medals at London 2012, and that he’s 99 percent sure he’ll keep swimming after the Olympics, because he’s enjoyed it that much. Read The Australian.
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Peter Vanderkaay teaching kids in Detroit to swim
According to the YMCA of Metropolitan Detroit, six out of ten kids will never learn how to swim in the city of Detroit. But with the help of Olympic gold medalist Peter Vanderkaay and his brothers, a group is teaching as many kids as they can to be good swimmers. Read more here on wxyz.com.
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Michael Gross: There is too little money in swimming
(Sorry for my poor German-to-English translation here, but this is noteworthy, off swimsportsnews.de) … )
20 years after his triple Olympic gold winning swimming career, Michael “The Albatross” Gross hardly ever follows swimming. ‘I’ve seen nothing from the last World Championships. It is pure coincidence if I watch any swimming.” Gross criticizes the lack of professionalism in swimming: “There is too little money in swimming to build any professionalism”, he says, “you need professional teams with personal responsibility.” Read swimsportnews.de