Dutchman Maarten van der Weijden won the men’s 25km open water world title today with the time of 5 hours 4 minutes 1.1 seconds, just 5 tenths of a second ahead of USA’s Mark Warkentin. Great swimming by the 27 year old, who in March 2001 was diagnosed with acute lymphatic leukaemia, and given only a slight chance of survival.
Source: SwimNews
The International Olympic Committee has decided to ban any kind of political protest at the upcoming Olympic Games in Bejing, including waving the Tibet flag, paying tribute to the Dalai Lama, or any other kind of “look, external appearance, clothing, gestures, and written or oral statements.”
Source: The Associated Press
While Arena is trying to keep its sponsored swimmers at bay by promising a new suit at the end of the month, Nike sort of just gives up, telling its swimmers that they are allowed to choose their own suits as long as the possible logos of other brands are blacked out.
Olympic pool champion Grant Hackett was disqualified for ‘interfering with another swimmer’ at the 5th Open Water Swimming Championships 10 km race in Sevilla (Spain) yesterday, but only after having dropped of contention by the time the judging decision was made. Russia’s Vladimir Dyatchin won in the time of 1 hour 53 minutes 21 seconds, with Britain’s David Davies in second place and Germany’s Thomas Lurz in third. Source: fina.org
16 members of the Triathlon Club of San Diego resumed open water training on Friday, a week after a great white shark killed a fellow teammate while training with the team. Read more here on SFGate
Here is a news flash from when the man was killed:
In a Swedish doping study, 55 men were willingly injected with testosterone, before undergoing the standard urine doping test. 17 of them tested negative, because they are missing a gene used to convert the testosterone into a form that dissolves in urine. This gene variation is especially common in Asian men.
Source: The New York Times
Madsen, who had a long history of coaching in Germany before accepting the DSV offer, is not yet convinced the Speedo suit makes a technical difference but there is no questioning the psychological impact.
“There have been 39 world records, long and short course, this year and 90 percent of them were in Speedo,” Madsen told Reuters during a poolside interview in Berlin, shortly before Australian swimmers set two more women’s records.
“That, or course, does something to the athletes. It’s almost impossible to put yourself in a state of mind where you say it doesn’t matter. Of course it matters.
Source: guardian.co.uk
The Italian swimming federation’s Institute of Medicine and Science is set to conduct a study on the relationship between the suits and the recent onslaught of world record. On the other hand, Dr. Brent Rushall states that this is just an example of excellence in marketing. “Speedo has picked a year in which traditionally, there is a high probability that the best swimmers will be swimming better than they ever have before”, “They capture those who are going to swim very, very fast” and “they don’t tell you how many did swim and didn’t break the records”.
Source: ESPN Sports
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