Great video here featuring Dara Torres, who together with five other 2012 USA Swimming team hopefuls and other prominent US athletes is backing the new REFUEL | “got chocolate milk?™” campaign. You know, there is science supporting refueling with chocolate milk, and it is delicious also. Via The Sacramento Bee.
Jacqueline Bradley is a Canberra based artist who makes sculptural objects, exploring ways of engaging with the surround environment, ideas of home and a sense of place.
This particular work of art, a dress with a built-in inflatable raft, was on display as part of an exhibit called The Outdoors Type at Canberra Contemporary Art Space back in 2011.
(Image courtesy of Jacqueline Bradley, CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)
Australian swimming head coach Leigh Nugent today defended the financial support given to comeback stars like Ian Thorpe after rumblings within the team about favoritism ahead of the Olympics. Via AFP
“I really can’t understand why they would (be upset),” Nugent told reporters ahead of crucial London Olympic selection trials in Adelaide this week.
“These guys are multiple gold medallists of recent times, multiple world record holders.
“They’re going to contribute, if they make it, to the performance of our team and maybe help some of the other members on the team with relay medals, bring experience to the team, stability to the team with that experience.
Spanish swimmer Aschwin Wildeboer Faber and his Dutch father Paulus Wildeboer, head coach of the Danish national team, at the Stockholm leg of the 2010 FINA/Arena World Cup circuit. Checking split-times or whatever after prelims on November 6th, 2010.
Interesting news here on FINA.org:
The Bureau has confirmed the creation of a Facilities Committee, formed by the following members:
- Joaquin Pujol (ESP), Chairman
- Kate McKnight (GBR), Honorary Secretary
- Per Rune Eknes (NOR), Member
- Mick Nelson (USA), Member
- Member from China, to be confirmed.
The aim of this Committee will be to deal and update the FINA Facilities Rules to be considered at the FINA General Congress in July 2013 in Barcelona (ESP) and to advice on the construction of aquatic centres (swimming pools).
On a more somber note, for the FINA Technical Open Water Swimming Committee, Mr. Andrea Prayer (ITA) has been nominated as new acting Honorary Secretary, in place of the suspended Mr. Flavio Bomio.
Though Michael gained millions of fans during the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, his biggest fan has been there since the beginning. Who could it be?
Disclaimer: All translations here are done by me (Rókur í Jákupsstovu) from Danish on Ingeniøren. Please read that text if you can, to avoid possible misunderstandings.
Swedish scientist and anti-doping grand old man Professor Bengt Saltin is still able to provoke people, despite of formally having retired after 40 years in the business. This week WADA’s Science Director Dr. Olivier Rabin hurried do defend his organization after scolding criticism by Saltin and others in the British Journal of Pharmacology, stating that blood doping practices are likely to remain for several years to come (with current anti-doping control practice), and that IOC’s promise of the London 2012 Games being the cleanest ever is “faint”. Read (in Danish) Ingeniøren
Dara Torres who turns 45 next month is finding it slower going these days as she attempts yet another comeback in pursuit of making her sixth Olympic swim team this summer.
“I am middle-aged so that makes it more difficult,” she said in a rare concession to the passage of time. “When I had this knee surgery, having to do all the rehab the year I had it put me behind training this time. You have to make sure it doesn’t mess with your head because this is taking much longer to come back from than in the past.”
She is doing some of the things she did to prepare for Beijing, but has added some work with a naturopathic doctor, eating more throughout the day and consuming natural supplements such as black licorice root.
“I can’t do all out in the morning. I can’t recover,” she said this week by phone from her home in Florida. “Everything is about pacing but going fast enough to get into the next round (of a meet). I get three-quarters through the race and my body just shuts down.”
Read more here on The Washington Post
(Photo of Dara Torres courtesy of Bryan Allison, CC BY-SA 2.0)
Swimming fans can expect to see records broken at the London Olympics, according to Britain’s head coach Dennis Pursley.
“You may not get as many as you normally would had it not been for the anomaly we had with the suits a couple of years ago but there certainly will be some records broken. I fully expect that to be the case.”
Double Olympic champion Rebecca Adlington agrees.
“Oh definitely,” … “The Olympics brings that out in people…the four-year cycle is all structured down to the Olympics and I think that especially with this crowd that will be there in the summer, it’s just going to be amazing.”
Read more here on Eurosport
