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.
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.
A Channel Nine portrait of Australian coaching legend Forbes Carlile, who just recently turned 90, and though still walks the deck on occasions at Carlisle Swimming. Nice historical videos in this video.
Planking is a craze consisting of having a photo taken while lying face down as a plank in an unusual location. Fanta Iceland has been arranging a competition on Facebook now for 4 weeks, called “Plankað með Fanta”, where people post photos of themself planking with Fanta bottles, with the chance of winning an iPhone 4. They are receiving a lot of photos, where I think this one is the best. Looks like a quality swimmer, floating like that.
All the best swimmers in the world are now flocking along the China Standard Time zone, waking up at approximately 7 AM in Shanghai, midnight in London, 7 PM the day before in New York and 4 PM the day before in San Francisco. The Brits are in Osaka, the Americans at the Gold Coast in Australia, the Australians, Swedes and South Africans in Singapore, the Brazilians in Macau, the Dutch in China, and the Japanese in Japan.
Michael Phelps and the others had to wait for 4 hours on the plane in Chicago because of missing pilots, Cullen Jones is searching for a lost Tuesday, Roland Schoeman celebrated his Stilnox sleeping pills so hard yesterday that he almost missed afternoon practice, and Femke Heemskerk had difficulties using Twitter and Facebook in China, later solved by using something called mediafunnel (see MediaFunnel). Australia’s James Magnusson is sadly struck down with pneumonia, forcing him to withdraw from the Shanghai 2011.
Interesting article here on the Washington Examiner, listing how different teams will cope with the danger of clenbuterol-contaminated meat at the Shanghai 2011 World Championships. USA are as always their own food with them, Australia will import meat and refrain from any pork meat, Italians will be urged to avoid red meat and instead eat more fish, while others like the South Africans and Serbia’s Milorad Cavic will trust the Chinese and FINA to make sure the food is safe.
Mount me a camera, and I’m all set for some cool open water swimming coverage!
What is this sport, and were do I sign up ?
Nice one Brazil, serve the journalists the opportunity to write headlines like this, followed by these intro words: “A damaging drugs scandal overhangs the world swimming championships in Shanghai, where a misfiring Michael Phelps will try to reignite his Olympic form.”
It could have been this, quote Swimming World Magazine’s John Long:
“The 2009 World Championships were a joke with the more than 40 world records,” Swimming World Magazine’s John Long told AFP.
“None of that was pure. But we’ve moved on and the sport is where it should be these days, based on talent and work ethic.”
But no, now it is the drugs, the perhaps dodgy handling of pharmaceuticals, the long list of already banned Brazilians, and the trying to get away with banning your best, despite of a clear and confirmed doping infringement. Bringing us all down.
