Swimmer's Daily

  • 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 :-)

  • According to The Australian, Ian Thorpe and Eamon Sullivan will be revealing a cooking book each next, Thorpe the “Cook For Your Life” focusing on food he loves while maintaining a healthy, lean body, and Sullivan a more no-nonsense book called “Eamon’s Kitchen: 130 robust no-fuss recipes for everyday and entertaining.”

    So, we present Eamon in the kitchen, almost fuss-less :-)

  • Australian swim coach Denis Cotterell is in a unique position to evaluate the strength of Chinese swimming, given that he has in recent years trained a number of the country’s best swimmers in his Gold Coast-based squad, including fastest man in the world for this year in the 200, 400, 800 & 1500 freestyle, Sun Yang.

    ‘People might be surprised by the time the world championships are over and realise there is another major, major player in the world and while we’ve always tried to square up to America I think we’ll be doing well to come up to China.”

    Another veteran swim coach, Ken Wood, who guided the early careers of the likes of Leisel Jones, Jess Schipper and Geoff Huegill, has also taken on a number of China’s top swimmers. “They’re going to dominate,” Wood said. “Their financial resources are unlimited and they’re prepared to pay.”

    Cotterell said the reasons, such as a fighting spirt, strong work ethic and incredible will to succeed of the Chinese swimmers, were obvious. “The ones I’ve had – not all of them but most of them, just train harder,” Cotterell said.

    “They train harder than anyone else I’ve had, except Grant (Hackett). Australians aren’t bludgers and they’re training all right but we have to learn more.

    Read more here on theage.com.au