The Monterotondo municipal pool in Monterotondo was one of the four additional Roma 2009 World Championships 50 meter training facilities, and the only one indoor. I remember it as a long bus ride, but really nice because we got a break from the sun :-)
Every kid can swim but for Hugo water is still very dangerous. Absolutely beautiful video here.
It will be up to Ryan Lochte to say “Drivers, start your engines” as Grand Marshal for the first Gatorade Duel this Thursday at Daytona International Speedway. Read for instance PaddockTalk, The Daytona Beach News-Journal and www.speedwaymedia.com
This Nascar Prayer from Nashville, but still :-)
Fancy headwear at the Rijeka 2008 European Short Course championships.
Wild story here on SwimNews.com (source Courier Mail), on how Australia’s Alicia Coutts was elbowed in the head and spat at by a European opponent on the way to her blocks for the 100m freestyle final at the Shanghai 2011 World Championships.
“I’d never had anyone try to psych me out before. It must be a sprint freestyle thing,” Coutts tells the CM. “I was sitting in the marshalling room next to a particular swimmer and she elbowed me in the head . . . then she continuously kept elbowing me. She just spat in front of me while I was walking … it was disgusting. People just playing mind games. It can’t be a fair race, I would never do that to someone. She obviously thought I was a threat, she felt she needed to put me off.”
Here is a video from that event – as mentioned on Speed Endurance Swimming Blog, Alicia Coutts doesn’t look too happy.
Suspects are these Europeans in that final: gold medalist Jeanette Ottesen (DEN); gold medalist Aliaksandra Herasimenia (BLR), bronze medalist Ranomi Kromowidjojo (NED), 4th placed Francesca Halsall (GBR), and 5th placed Femke Heemskerk (NED).
Gabe Watson is charged with first-degree murder, prosecutors saying he drowned his wife on their honeymoon to collect a life insurance payout, and defense maintaining that Tina, in her first open water dive, panicked and died accidentally. He served 18 months in Australia for manslaughter. Read The Huffington Post.
California-based photographer Seth Casteel devised a series of ball games to get dogs playing in the pool, like holding a ball under water and releasing it in his “bobbing for apples strategy”, to get them to dunk their faces it trying to get the ball. “The timing of this is the most challenging part,” he says. Read more here on The Star
“There’s no aggression towards me. And in the photos where there’s more than one dog, there’s no aggression between the dogs. It’s really just a wild instinct to retrieve that sinking toy.”
Swim coaches Rob Marshall Hill and Seth Dawson have been identified as casualties of a single-engine plane crash Wednesday on Little Si near North Bend, Washington, according to for instance The Seattle Times. Both were swim coaches at Decatur High School and the Valley Aquatics Swim Team in South King County, Washington, 30-year-old Hill also a private flight instructor and pilot on this particular flight, and 31-year-old Dawson a local swim legend. Read for instance The Seattle Times, The Columbian, The Bellingham Herald and watch a touching video here on q13fox.com.
Despite being a natural-born swimmer, one small penguin at an animal park in Northeast China’s Heilongjiang Province is too timid to dive into the water. Penguins do know how to swim, but they have to learn how to climb up ashore, and can have problem with controlling their direction and speed while swimming. To help the young penguins gain more aquatic skills, their parents will cheer for them in the water and demonstrate proper form. If they take too long to make it back to the bank, trainers will rescue the birds to keep them from getting exhausted.
Read more here on Today’s THV
