Shanghai - Day 3

Day 3 at 14th FINA champioships and as expected China continue to dominate the diving, winning their sixth gold medal of the competition.
Kerri-Anne Payne of Great Britain won the women’s 10km open water swim in a time of 2 hours 1 minute and 58 seconds.
The Russian women showed their class as they took first place in several of the synchronized swimming.

Shanghai - Day 1

The opening ceremony of the FINA world championships was incredible and the chinese were able to showcase their class both in and out of the pool.
The performances of the opening ceremony had a resemblance to that of the 2008 olympics and with this event set to be successful, it puts London under a lot of pressure to live up to the expectations set in place by the chinese.
In the pool, the chinese women dominated the 3m synchronized diving and took the first gold medal of the tournament, with Canada finishing second and Australia taking the bronze.
The Chinese men also qualified in first position for the 10m platform synchronized diving.

Furosemide

Furosemide, the substance the brazilian team was busted for, is given to race horses to stop them bleeding through the nose so this is no mild drug which they may have found in some flu medicine. It is more commonly used to treat heart disease or edema so unless these elite athletes, who are in their physical prime, are suffering from heart complications then we can assume it is being used as a masking drug and is hiding something slightly more effective. Whatever it is they’re hiding, it must be potent and I wouldn’t mind getting my hands on some of that.

Brazil team Tests Positive

Ahead of the 14th FINA world champs, all athletes go through routine drug and doping tests. Several members of the brazilian swimming team have tested positive for the drug Furosemide.
Swimmers Nicholas Santos, Henrique Barbosa, Vinicius Waked and international superstar and arguably the world’s greatest freestyle sprinter Cesar Cielo Filho tested positive for the banned substance.
An appeal has already been made by FINA but this is slightly premature as the athletes have not yet been suspended and CAS is yet to make a decision about the athletes’ suspension.

Stephanie Rice

Just another reason to start swimming

2011 FINA World Champs

The 14th bi-annual FINA world champs will be taking place in Shanghai from saturday 16 - 31 July. This championship will not only be a serious competition in itself but will serve as a good indicator for what to expect for the 2012 Olympic games. After a poor performance by Michael Phelps at the Michigan Grand Prix, where he finished fourth in the 200m Fly, he will be looking to prove a point before the olympics.

Beijing 2008 Men’s Results

Men's 50m Freestyle
Cesar Cielo Filho

Amaury Leveaux

Alain Bernard

Men's 100m Backstroke
Aaron Peirsol

Matt Grevers

Arkady Vyatchanin

Men's 100m Breaststroke
Kosuke Kitajima

Alexander Dale Oen

Hugues Duboscq

Men's 100m Butterfly
Michael Phelps

Milorad Cavic

Andrew Lauterstein

Men's 100m Freestyle
Alain Bernard

Eamon Sullivan

Jason Lezak

Cesar Cielo Filho

Men's 200m Backstroke
Ryan Lochte

Aaron Peirsol

Arkady Vyatchanin

Men's 200m Breaststroke
Kosuke Kitajima

Brenton Rickard

Hugues Duboscq

Men's 200m Butterfly
Michael Phelps

Laszlo Cseh

Takeshi Matsuda

Men's 200m Freestyle
Michael Phelps

Park Taehwan

Peter Vanderkaay


Men’s 200m IM
Michael Phelps

Laszlo Cseh

Ryan Lochte

Men's 400m Freestyle
Park Taehwan

Zhang Lin

Larsen Jensen

Men's 400m Individual Medley
Michael Phelps

Laszlo Cseh

Ryan Lochte

Men's 4x100m Freestyle Relay
USA

France

Australia

Men's 4x100m Medley Relay
USA

Australia

Japan

Men's 4x200m Freestyle Relay
USA

Russia

Australia

Men's 1,500m Freestyle
Oussama Mellouli

Grant Hackett

Ryan Cochrane

Men's 10k Marathon
Maarten van der Weijden

David Davies

Thomas Lurz

London Olympics 2012

The 2012 London Games is fast approaching and as the tension builds, questions start to arise as to what we can expect and from whom. We can expect big things from the big names such as Phelps in the 200’s and 400’s and of course Cielo Filho in the 50m and 100m freestyle.
There are however athletes who will have a point to prove or score to settle from previous encounters. The mens’ 100m fly will be a race to watch as Cavic can be expected to make an attempt at the gold medal. The french swim team also has a point to prove and regain their status as the international powerhouse in the sprint events, not only in the individual events but also the relays.

This was a major spectacle at 2008 olympics, with the american team causing a huge upset by beating the french in the 4x 100m mens’ freestyle relay.




The American relay team is obviously the favourite for both the freestyle and medley relays but we can expect valiant efforts from the Japanese and Brazilian teams who may just cause an upset and take gold in the relay events.
We can look to the British womens’ team for big things in both the individual and relay events and they will be expected to perform on home turf.

Another highlight is the new aquatics center which is being built and showcases the latest design features and will be sure to impress not only architects & engineers but all the spectators who are lucky enough to watch the swimming as well as the viewers at home.