There you go, anything is possible: “I started swimming at seven. The first couple of years I was afraid of putting my face in the water. I just wasn’t comfortable. Eventually I just put it in and off I went.” Via 2012olympicsblog.co.uk
USA Swimming is lining up a lot of its very best swimmers, to compete against an European All-Star team at the 2011 Mutual of Omaha Duel in the Pool on December 16-17. For instance Amanda Beard, Natalie Coughlin, Missy Franklin, Jessica Hardy, Dana Vollmer and Kate Ziegler, and Tyler Clary, Mark Gangloff, Brendan Hansen, Ryan Lochte, Eric Shanteau and Garrett Weber-Gale. Faroese interest falls especially on Peter Vanderkaay, since he and Pál Joensen swim pretty much the same events, with Pál beating Vanderkaay in the 800 and 1500 at the 2011 World Championships in Shanghai, and Vanderkaay doing the vice versa in Dubai 2010. See the USA roster here.
If I’m not mistaken, we have a race on our hands, with Diana Nyad continuing to chase her ‘Xtreme dream’ to swim from Cuba to Florida, and now also Penny Palfrey planning to swim from Cuba to Florida in June 2012. Palfrey has the world record for the longest solo unassisted ocean swim without a shark cage, from when she swam from Little Cayman to Grand Cayman in June this year, which these 103 miles to Key West will break. Via loneswimmer.com.
Featuring Rebecca Adlington, an opera singing Royal Guard, a sausage seller and others, almost all of them underwater. Mmm, Cadbury, via shootonline.com.
And prohibited during swimming hours, see rule No. 3. Sign found in Okinawa, Japan, picture courtesy of Daam Nillan, via Engrish.com.
Mike Lewis from OpenWaterSwimming.com testing the FINIS Ankle Strap Cord, an adaption of the classic hip belt.
Courtesy of Gold Medal Mel and FINIS.
Wow, Uncle Toby’s isn’t just oatmeal and fumbling sprinters, presenting 6 video lessons with Grant Hackett & Eamon Sullivan. See www.swimkids.com.au
I’ve been in a minibus with this guy and Eamon Sullivan as late as in Stockholm in October, it was even more mini with them in it :-)
Also in these news, Eamon Sullivan is surprised that he maybe gets to race Ian Thorpe already now … and calls butterfly a ‘weird event’ :-)
“I had not even thought about it,” Sullivan said, with a laugh. “I did not even know he was doing it (freestyle). I thought he was just doing IMs and all weird events.”
Read The Herald Sun and Courier Mail
