Swimmer's Daily

  • One man training to be a Navy SEAL was dead and a off-duty lifeguard in grave condition yesterday after trying to do breath-holding exercises in a public pool in Staten Island, practicing techniques similar to those used in military training. About 20 people were swimming in the pool staffed with 2 lifeguards and 5 other staff members, when the two men were found in 3 feet of water in a corner of the Lyons Pool in Tompkinsville. Via NY Daily News and The Wall Street Journal.

  • A gem here on Google Video, almost 40 minutes of historical US swimming video footage, as seen through Australian eyes. “Swimming the American Way”, a film by Forbes and Ursula Carlile, from when they in 1965 toured North America and visited legendary Doc Counsilman at the Indiana University.

  • Great picture of South Africa’s Graeme Moore, here in Roland Schoeman’s Lockerz-photos. I wonder what kind of kid gets that kind of tall and narrow pool, so yes, lets’ buy them all and make ice baths out of them :-)

    Who needs a $6000 ice bath when you can rock the $50 Disney version like @graemeswim #ingenuity http://lockerz.com/s/120012882less than a minute ago via Echofon Favorite Retweet ReplyRoland Schoeman
    Rolandschoeman

  • Singapore is definitely a hotspot for world class swim training at the moment, with the national teams of Australia, Sweden, South Africa, Canada, Iceland and our own Pál Joensen from the Faroe Islands preparing there for the 14th FINA World Swimming Championships. Here is a nice video from the Canadian camp.

  • Oprah“Started out the week taking swimming lessons,” Winfrey said in an email Tuesday night. “Moving beyond my amateur doggy paddle. Learning the breast stroke today”. Admitting that for years she had been afraid of the water, she’s finally learned to go with the flow.

    “This I’ve known forever is the great metaphor of life,” the lady who hates surprises emailed. “Move with the flow. Don’t fight the current. Resist nothing. Let life carry you. Don’t try to carry it. Sometimes we just have to be reminded. A swim lesson did it for me.”

    Read The Huffington Post.

  • The Court of Arbitration for Sport announced today that it has scheduled it arbitration of FINA’s appeal against Cesar Cielo, Nicholas dos Santos, Henrique Barbosa and Vinicius Waked as well as the Brazilian Swimming Federation for July 20 in Shanghai, partially via video conferencing. They promise that it will take only half a day, and that deliberations and a final decision will be made at the end of July 22. CAS officially states that FINA has requested that the warnings issued be replaced by a period of ineligibility, and that results from the date of sample collection until the commencement of the period of ineligibility be annuled. Read more here on Swimming World Magazine.

  • In China the public swimming pools are generally too crowded for swimming, leaving ordinary people no option but to stand on the spot, “boiling dumplings” as they say. Regular schools do not have swim teams and there is no network of community swimming clubs so the majority of training and racing in Chinese pools is at official sport schools, which groom children from a young age to compete internationally. Read more here on google.com/hostednews/afp

    Crowded Korean Pool

    (crowded pool in Korea, nothing to do with China, but crowded :-)

  • A little over five years ago, Conrad Maldives Rangali Island opened the very first all-glass, undersea restaurant, offering guests the chance to eat 16 feet below sea level of the breathtaking tropical Indian Ocean. Now in celebration of this, they turned the Ithaa restaurant into a temporary private Hilton-class bedroom suite for two, complete with a private champagne dinner and breakfast in bed. Via modernmet.com.

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  • As probably a natural result of hosting the event, seven or eight swimming pools in Shanghai have temporarily been transformed into training centers for athletes competing in the 14th FINA World Championships, forcing members there to find another pool until next month. Nearby pools are taking advantage of the situation by hiking the already relatively high entry fees. See Global Times.

    The affected pools are according to Tales of City.

    • Xuhui Swimming pool (No. 329 Fenglin Rd.)
    • Swimming pool at International Gymnastics Center Shanghai (No. 777 Wuyi Rd)
    • Swimming pool at Jingan Sports Center (No. 151 Kangding Rd)
    • Diving pool at Pudong Oriental Sports Center (No. 168 Jiyang Rd)
    • Swimming pool at Yuansheng Sports Center (No. 1458 Zhangyang Rd)
    • Pudong Swimming Pool (No 3669 West Pudong Rd)
    • Swimming Pool at Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine (No. 1200 Cailun Rd)
    • Besides, the Shanghai Swimming Pool which has been decorated for two years will not open until the end of the competition.