Swimmer's Daily

  • Lithuanian men took to the water some weeks ago in a race where inflatable sex dolls were used as rafts. This in celebration of “National Men’s Day”, and luckily both men and dolls were properly dressed. Liudas Pestintinkas won the race with his “Vaida”, whom he describes as a good and listening girl, in what I’m sure must be a new world record time. 200 men signed up for the race, but only 20 turned up on the day. I wonder why. Read The Telegraph.

  • After having qualified for the Beijing Olympics 2008, Scott Spann had problems with his knees, but thought nothing of it. He had it for several months leading into the Olympics, and swam through the Games with it. Afterwards, it turns out his knee had been broken for six months. And then it got worse. Ouch! Via Gold Medal Mel.

  • At approximately 10:07 pm Sunday night, marathon swimmer Penny Palfrey set a new world record by swimming 67.25 miles from Little Cayman to Grand Cayman in 40 hours and 41 minutes. Read more here on compasscayman.com and here on The Daily News of Open Water Swimming.

  • The Norwegian Swimming Federation has shared quite a few good videos from the Mare Nostrum meets in Barcelona and Canet, here on youtube.com, focusing of course on the Norwegian participation. The video below is from when Norway’s Alexander Dale Oen won the men’s 100 meter breaststroke, posting a sizzling new meet record of 1:00.29.

  • 48-year-old mother of tree and grandmother of one Penny Palfrey is at this moment more than a day into a 67-68 mile (107) solo swim from Little Cayman to Grand Cayman, in an attempt to set the world record for longest ever unassisted ocean swim. And meeting the wildlife apparently, having sighted a white tip shark so close that they threw fish out to make it loose interest. Follow it live on Livestream and read The Daily News of Open Water Swimming.

    Watch live streaming video from liveopenwater at livestream.com

    A telling tweet …

    Penny Palfrey very close to a shark attack in the Caymans – 68mile solo swim – Track audio updates at http://livestream.com/liveopenwaterless than a minute ago via TweetDeck Favorite Retweet ReplyLive Swimming
    LiveSwim

  • Swimming legend Janet Evans broke two world masters records on Saturday, in her first competition since the 1996 Olympic Games. First, Evans clocked 4:23.82 in the 400 meter freestyle, besting the previous world record for the 35-39 age group of 4:26.17, set in 1997. And then later, she shattered the world masters record in her the 800 meter freestyle, clocking 8:59.06, more than 10 seconds faster than the previous record.  Via The Orange County Register.

  • Five-time Australian Olympic swimming champion Ian Thorpe cannot return to competition before November, but came to the Mare Nostrum 2011 meet in Monaco with coach Gennadi Tourtski from his training base at Tenero in Switzerland.

    Ian Thorpe

    Asked how he sees his current capabilities compared with when he dominated the sport, he says “I’m physically not ready to know how well I can swim. I’m working on it. Towards the end of the year, I’ll be able to answer more directly.” And then he notes that swimmers have grown since then.

    “The biggest difference is physically people have changed. People are bigger than they used to be because I used to be the biggest person and I realize people are bigger than me, and the men, the women, it’s a lot more power.”

    Even so he insists there will always be more to swiming than power and physical strength alone.

    “There’s a balance between being too muscular and being restricted by that. Swimming is swimming.”

    Source: AFP

  • Womens’ 200 individual medley at the 32è Trofeu Internacional Ciutat de Barcelona de Natació 2011. Australia’s Alicia Coutts wins in 2:09.68, Spanish Mireia Belmonte is 2nd in 2:12.55, and Great Britain’s open water swimmer Keri-Anne Payne is 3rd in 2:13.99. Coutts’ winning time was the best female performance on the Barcelona leg (934 FINA points), for which she was named Barcelona 2011 cup winner alongside Japan’s Ryosuke Irie.

  • Janet Evans walked away from swimming after the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, with her gold medals and world records that stood for many many years, morphed into a spokeswoman, got married and had two kids. Now in an exclusive interview with The Associated Press, 39-year-old Evans revealed that she’s been training hard for the past six months with an eye on qualifying for the next year’s Olympic trials and, if all goes according to plan, earning a spot on the U.S. team for the London Games 2012. Read more here on newser.com and ap.org.

    The first official test for Evans will come this weekend at the Janet Evans Invitational Masters meet in Fullerton, Calif. According to the Associated Press article, Evans will swim the 400- and 800-meter freestyles – events in which she held the world record – as well as the 200 freestyle and 200 backstroke. This will be Evans’ first competition since the 1996 Olympics. See www.swimmingworldmagazine.com.