The Worst Pools In The World

"If Concrete Could Burn."

By Jane

Not long ago, we published our list of what we view as the best pools in the world. It's a biased list in that the pools were chosen for various reasons, including their strangeness (Leeds), location (North Sydney), history (Newmarket; Rome) and sentimentality (Long Beach). But for every stunning aquatic centre, there is its ugly, over-chlorinated twin. Thus, we bring you the worst pools in the world... it turns out that they're mostly in New Zealand, but we've simply not visited any real shockers elsewhere.

Clive Memorial Pool
15 Farndon Rd, Pakowhai, 4102, New Zealand

If concrete could burn, it would smell like the Clive Pool. Imagine it for a second. Old, dirty concrete, soaked in chlorine, on fire.

Windowless. Airless. They've added some windows since I last visited, but I doubt they've added oxygen. The starting blocks were rough slabs of concrete. The picnic benches to the east side of the pool were buckling under decades of dampness. The water was murky like a sick Seattle morning when the Space Needle is invisible in the fog. Underwater, I had the feeling I was swimming in blue milk.

Blue, concrete-infused milk that, at some point, had been on fire.

The weird thing about my relationship with the Clive pool was that I completed some amazing workouts there. I swam repeats of 3,000 metres faster than I ever had before in 81 degree Fahrenheit water. I first broke a minute for 100m freestyle there. When my best time for 100m breaststroke was something around 1:15, I completed a time trial in 1:12.

At least part of my successes between 1999 and 2002 were due to training sessions swum at Clive and I'll never forget some of the good times David and I had driving from Napier, listening to our Nissan's bitchin' stereo, on our way to Clive for some swimming. That I had some good times there, however, does not negate the fact that Clive is definitely one of the worst pools in the world.


Lloyd Elsmore Leisure Centre

Lloyd Elsmore Park, Pakuranga, 2010, New Zealand

Admission is free. That should have been our first warning. More than once, we made the mistake of stopping at Lloyd Elsmore to train after the Auckland Championships. Why did we not drive to Papakura or Newmarket? I suppose convenience was our only excuse.

The pool is hot. Really hot. There are fast, medium and slow lanes, but the lane speeds aren't enforced and the lanes are possibly half the size of a standard Olympic width. Frog-leg, 1950s breaststroke is the order of the day, whilst children pour over the lane ropes from the play area. A chronic language barrier means that no one in the pool can understand each other which, with the overcrowding, makes swimming there somewhat like navigating a Christmas sale in a foreign country.


Raumati Pool
Marine Parade, Paraparaumu Beach, 5032, Raumati, New Zealand

Do you like filth, weird hours and draconian life guards? If so, Raumati is the place for you. Let me refer you to the case of a swimmer at Raumati who was banned from the pool for flip turning. Tumble turning. Doing this. I quote:

"Here I am one quiet morning empty lane plodding up and down my last training session before Rotorua half ironman. just a 2km quicky. I get stopped 6 or so lengths into it and told "get out you are tumble turning". I later find out (after xmas) that I have been banned for tumble turning. this has to qualify for pool rage only problem I can't rage about it in the pool now. Any suggestions, help, is it legal, can pool staff enforce ban. I am not a happy swimmer having to travel some distance to another pool (strangely enough run by the same council - go figure)."

The thread I've link to documents the swimmer's ban, at the hands of the Kapiti Coast District Council, which was initially for two years but which was reduced to six months and then overturned entirely. The grotesque crime - flip turning - was apparently not forbidden at the pool, but an overzealous pool attendant simply decided that the technique got on his nerves on that particular day. Other swimmers - including myself - have flip turned at Raumati. The pool even has a swim team. The sad thing is, this is just an extreme example of the normal idiot fodder from small-town pool attendants and city councils.

I seriously hope you're not thinking about tumble-turning...

Napier (Onekawa) Aquatic Centre
Maadi Road, Onekawa, Hawkes Bay 4110, New Zealand

Firstly, I'd refer you to our ancient Napier Pools Guide, which rates the Napier Aquatic Centre, formerly known as Onekawa, as a miserable failure. Everything that Raumati does, the Napier Aquatic Centre can do worse.

A personal view of the Napier pool's misgivings: For a long time, I had no good idea why I had such trouble breathing at night. I'd have awful coughing fits and difficulty regaining my breath, but I didn't have asthma or any other distinct respiratory ailment. I also suffered from a curious light sunburn on my face year-round. Literally two weeks after I stopped training at the Napier Aquatic Centre, having moved across the Pacific to Pullman, Washington, both the cough and the burn were gone. It was the water at that pool.

Again: no ventilation, no windows, no pool rules and a generally aggressive, retarded staff. The water spelled bad. Not like Clive's concrete, but like a dirty bath. Patrons used the backstroke flags as clothes lines. Junk food, dropped on the pool deck, was never cleaned up. The place was putrid.


King County Aquatic Center, aka Federal Way
650 SW Campus Drive, Federal Way, WA 98023

What? Surely the King County Aquatic Center doesn't belong on a post about the world's worst pools? Whilst in a very different league to the above, Federal Way makes the list out of pure boringness. Wet tea-towels are more inspiring. No one could have built a more personality-void, bland shell of a pool if there had been a bland-pool-building competition.

The pool produces great swimmers. There is, in fact, nothing inherently wrong with it, aside from its epic boringness. But its boringness is its downfall.

Until Proven Guilty

By David

Three months after Reginald Woolmington married 17 year old Violet Woolmington, she left him and went home to live with her mother. Reginald was not best pleased. He cycled to his mother-in-law’s house and shot and killed his young bride. At the trial Reginald claimed he did not intend to kill Violet. He planned to scare her by threatening to kill himself. Accidentally the gun went off shooting Violet through the heart. The trial judge ruled that the case was so strong against Reginald that the onus was on him to show that the shooting was accidental. The jury agreed. On February 14 1935 Reginald was convicted and sentenced to hang. Reginald, however, was not done. He appealed the case to the House of Lords and he won. In articulating the ruling, Viscount Sankey made his famous "Golden Thread" speech:

“Throughout the web of the English Criminal Law one golden thread is always to be seen, that it is the duty of the prosecution to prove the prisoner's guilt subject to what I have already said as to the defense of insanity and subject also to any statutory exception.”

Reginald’s conviction was overturned and he was acquitted; the first beneficiary of the “Golden Thread” that was to become known as “innocent until proven guilty”.

Today, many modern democracies include the right in their legal codes and constitutions. Although the Constitution of the United States does not cite it explicitly, the presumption of innocence is widely held to follow from the 5th, 6th and 14th amendments. In Canada, section 11(d) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms states: "Any person charged with an offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty.”

In France, article 9 of the Declaration of the Rights of Man, says "Everyone is supposed innocent until having been declared guilty." And if all that is not enough, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, article 11, states: "Everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial at which they have had all the guarantees necessary for their defence."

Given all this history and universal acceptance, why on earth did Chuck Wielgus, Executive Director of USA Swimming say the following?

"Within the culture of swimming, if you're doing something you shouldn't be doing, we want to catch you and throw you out of the sport. In other sports, it's about excuses and justifications and being innocent until you're proven guilty.”

I never thought I’d see the day when a fundamental human right was so scorned by a public official. Surely Wielgus is not supporting the idea that, in swimming, an accused is guilty until he or she proves their innocence. If he is, then thank God that view is not running the country. I did notice Wielgus was also reported as saying;

"Our athletes are like All-American kids. If you align yourself with them, you don't run the risk of athletes being found in some strip club in Vegas."

In fact of course swimming has had its share of mishaps; DUI convictions, social drug busts and now Jessica Hardy has a performance enhancing problem. It was always likely the Wielgus “cleaner that clean” position would bite him on the bum. And sure enough it has. This is what he had to say about Jessica Hardy’s positive test:

"We are hopeful the matter will be resolved expeditiously. Out of respect for the hearing process, USA Swimming will have no further comment at this time."

I see, suddenly the hearing process becomes important. We are not quite so gung-ho about “throwing you out of the sport” or quick to abandon basic rights such as “innocent until proven guilty.” The change is not so much a flip flop; more of a tumble turn.

And thank goodness for that. Certainly Hardy deserves all the protection the sport and the law can offer. She may have been denied the right to challenge for a gold medal; she should never be denied the right to her “Golden Thread” of justice.

Perhaps There Is Another Way

By David

As the elite athletic world prepares for the Beijing Olympic Games, the rest of us are being provided with a most graphic example of the difference between the preparation proposed by Arthur Lydiard and the preparation followed by most of the swimming world. The example we are being shown does not demonstrate all the differences. It shows only the disparity in an athlete’s final preparation. When this difference is added to the very real differences in the early stages of a season’s training, the gap is huge.

With a couple of weeks to go before things get underway in Beijing, most of the swimming world’s federations are locked away in training camps, swimming carefully prepared sets. The locations are usually warm and exotic. “Carefully ensconced” would not be an out of place description for swimming’s approach to these final few weeks. Swimmers I’ve coached have spent their final weeks in camps in California, Hawaii, the south of France, Brunei and Auckland, New Zealand.

In track and field there are some who do the training camp thing. The majority of athletes however follow Lydiard’s advice and are out around the world competing. Just last night in Stockholm, Craig Mottram, Asafa Powell, Usain Bolt, Meserat Defar, Jeremy Warriner, Muna Lee, Mashavret Hooker and Allyson Felix, Kimberley Smith and a dozen other probable Olympic medalists were competing in Stockholm. This weekend they all shift to London to do the same thing. It doesn’t matter whether they are sprinters sharpening themselves over 100 meters in 9.88 seconds or distance athletes running for 13 minutes. They are all there. For most of them, London will be their fourth or fifth stop on a seven meet programme of competition before the Beijing meet.

To train in a camp or compete in the full view of the world; this is not a question of shades of grey. One might be better than the other. The difference is far too extreme for that. One must be right and the other must be wrong; one superior and the other deficient.

I happen to be a supporter of the track athlete’s method of preparation. The swimming nation that first realises the difference and wholeheartedly converts its swimming to this preparation is going to steal a march on the rest of the swimming world. The times swum by Hoff, Phelps, Hackett, Trickett and Manaudou will look as second rate as those of Weissmuller do today. Good in their time but unlikely to make the final of a Sectional Meet these days. Anyone interested in what Lydiard would consider to be a dated method of preparation can read about it in Dave Salo’s new book “Complete Conditioning for Swimming”. It’s a good description of what everyone does in swimming today. What the sport needs is to look down the road at what is possible tomorrow – and this book is not that.

Instead of tapering down to a peak – even the term is a contradiction – the Lydiard track method of final preparation is based is a series of time trials and races in the ten weeks leading up to an Olympic Games. The time trials and races are consciously designed mock exams. They are tests during which the swimmer’s endurance, anaerobic conditioning, speed, technique, starts, turns, stroke counts, stroke rates and all the other skills required to race well are tested and retested. Shortcomings are corrected in the week’s other sessions before the swimmer is tested again. This test, correction, test, correction process continues through the 10 weeks, culminating in the season’s main competition. As Lydiard said, “You should be in a good position to pass the main exam after ten weeks of mock tests.” Just as importantly, the season’s main event is a natural follow on from all that has gone before. It is something that is built up to in a logical and controlled manner. It doesn’t take a coaching genius to see that this must have advantages over the traditional "train like mad and stop for a two weeks taper and hope" method used by national squads today.

It is also the method used by the Patriots to prepare for the Super Bowl, the Yankees to get ready for the World Series and the Spurs to play in the Finals. In fact, the best players in just about every sport you can think of these days execute their final preparation by competing as frequently and as hard as possible up to their main event. Wimbledon has Queens and the French Open; the British Golf Open has the European and Scottish Opens. Just about every sport you can think of does this, except for swimming. But just wait until swimming does it too. Rowdy Gaines and John McBeth are going to need a whole new vocabulary.

Arthur Lydiard And The Chocolate Bar

By Jane

We tell current stories here on Swimwatch, but there are some fantastic stories that hale from the days before Swimwatch existed. A few stories stand out to me as those which made me a swimmer and made swimming life worthwhile at times and horrifying at others.

This is my first installment in a series of tales that help define my life in this sport. They're in a rough chronological order. The first one dates from January 10, 1998.

You believed Arthur when he told you something. Perhaps it was his complete conviction in himself that did it: he passionately believed what he was saying, and so you did, too. In Barry Magee’s words, “when Arthur Lydiard told me I could win a race, I knew I could.”

The first time this affected me personally was in the way Arthur approached me when I was thirteen and needed to swim a freestyle race in Auckland. I had spent the weekend swimming the breaststroke races at the Auckland Age Group Championships, but on the last day of competition, the breaststroke events having been completed, I had been entered in the one-hundred metres freestyle. In the morning preliminaries, I had qualified for the final in second place. Ahead of me in first place was a girl who had been lauded as the next most wonderful thing to happen to New Zealand swimming. She had swum two seconds faster than me, and I did not believe I had a hope of beating her. My family and I were staying at Arthur’s Beachlands house, forty-five minutes east of the swimming pool. Arthur decided half way through the afternoon that he would come and see me swim in the evening. We had been in the car for two minutes, driving west, when Arthur turned to me in the back seat.

“Do you think you can win tonight?” he asked. I was hesitant. Of course, with Arthur Lydiard coming to see me, I would have to look slick, but the girl ahead of me was two seconds faster, a virtual eternity in sprint events.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe I can swim faster than I did this morning.”

Arthur turned back to the front seat and fiddled around in his carry-bag. When he turned back to me again, he was holding the largest Rocky Road chocolate bar I had ever seen. Full of marshmallows, jello, and milk chocolate, the thing was about two centimeters thick and five times as long.

“Eat this,” he said. “And you’ll win the race.”

I breathed almost every stroke in the last twenty meters, looking at my competitor in lane four. I beat her by less than half a second. Eleven years later, it's still one of my proudest wins.

No Trumpets, Just Air

By David

It may be worth saying again that the views expressed in Swimwatch or the Huffington Post or any other blog are only opinions. They are not tablets of stone brought down from Mt. Sanai. There are some who have difficulty understanding that. At the Speedo Southern Sectional Meet last weekend some guy – I have no idea of his name or station in life; he didn’t reveal either – called me over and berated me for the Swimwatch report on the Fort Lauderdale International Meet. He was full of some pretty impressive abuse, calling me and the Swimwatch report “pathetic and nasty, nasty”. My guess is the repetition was for emphasis. Some, perhaps many, who agree with him. However, the Swimwatch article was not a personal attack but simply one observer’s view on a good swim meet that could do with a face lift. I’m sure the framers of the Constitution would see the report as fitting properly into the spirit of the First Amendment. I suspect our Fort Lauderdale reader would not be as generous.

The incident did get me thinking about aspects of swimming in Florida that have caused me surprise. I have spoken of some of these before; the fantastic level and depth of competition in the State, the standard of officials, the hospitality and deference shown to swim coaches, the excellent Sizzler and Sub-JO structure for young swimmers and a hundred other qualities. At the Sectional Meet this weekend one of the referees was new to the area. A Florida Gold Coast official introduced me to her and said if there was a problem she was the person I should contact. What good manners, what courtesy, what class. Everyone respects that. I have agreed with the concern expressed by the sport’s local administrators over the 90% teenage drop-out rate and have admired their willingness to tackle the problem. There are administrators the world over who hide from that sort of self analysis.

Have there been any negative surprises? Yes, of course there have. One stands out. I have been staggered at the speed and frequency at which some swimmers change clubs. Our team has benefited and lost as a consequence of the migratory habits of many swimming families. A club a year is not unusual. I know the President of a local club who had her family batting an average of about that. One of our mid-teen ex-swimmers is slightly ahead of even that impressive statistic. Long term, it’s the athletes who pay for all this vagrancy. There may be short term benefits but a sound long term career can not be built that way.

I do not know why club member’s nomadic behavior is so bad in Florida. There have been some who put it down to the American mania for instant results – fast food swimming. “I did not get the result I wanted quickly enough so I’m off somewhere else” – swimming in the drive-through lane. One parent who left our team after one year told me he was sure our Lydiard programme would produce long term results but, if his daughter was to get a University scholarship, they needed results quickly. Like fast-food, fast-results are seldom the best results. Others have stated that the programme doesn't work, to which I contest that it's not as if they'd know, as none of them actually completed it.

Lydiard had a very strong opinion on this behavior. Many times he said to me, “David I’ve never taken a runner back. Never take a swimmer back.” His view was based on the belief that in a broken relationship, trust lost is unlikely to be repaired. I have only taken a swimmer back once and that didn’t work. After three months she was on her way again. Interestingly, about two weeks ago she was back for a second time asking to be reinstated. Her journey to a third club had not worked out. This time I said no. If more coaches followed Lydiard’s advice, it may curb Florida swimming’s itinerant wanderings. Soon the roamers would have no home to go to. But it would mean losing another set of training fees, and money usually wins.

The effect of all this migration is easy to see. At most swim meet “UNA” is by far and away the biggest club. “UNA” means unattached: the status given to swimmers who have recently shifted clubs and are serving three months probation. At the Fort Lauderdale Sectional Meet swimmers from “UNA” accounted for 216 entries. That is probably about 40 of the region’s best swimmers who are in the process of changing clubs.

I do hope mentioning this oddity of Florida swimming will not result in another poolside ambush. It is clearly a difficult concept for some to understand, but mentioning things that could do with a bit of attention is not a condemnation of the whole. Far from it; swimming in Florida and the International Meet is exciting, competitive and fun. Come to think of it, so is the attention of a disgruntled reader.

Beijing's Olympic Champions Are...

By David

And so the race has been run. In Omaha, Sydney, Berlin, Auckland and Christiansted, the trials have been held, the cast has been settled. But who will win in Beijing? No one from Auckland or Christiansted, but Omaha, Sydney and Berlin could have a few. I’m not allowed to bet on swimming but for those of you who are and have access to a London bookie here is a list of the swimmers I think would be worth a pound to win.

Men’s 50 Freestyle – Eamon Sullivan

I’ve been fortunate enough to see Sullivan and his American competition swim the 50 this year. Sullivan might not be that much faster but his effortless straight arm stroke makes it all look so easy and that is usually a very good sign.

Men’s 100 Freestyle – Eamon Sullivan

A bit harder to pick because Alain Bernard from France has been preparing quietly and carefully and he is the world’s fastest, but I think Sullivan is a better competitor. American sprinters Garrett Weber-Gale and Jason Lezak are good competitors but not fast enough to take down the Aussie.

Men’s 200 Freestyle – Michael Phelps

No matter what the others do, Phelps has this race covered. van den Hoogenband is good but not as good as Phelps.

Men’s 400 Freestyle – Tae Hwan Park

A close one between Park and Jensen from the USA; I give it to Park because of his unbelievable last length speed. How well he swims may be influenced by how he has handled the fame that came from his swims at the World Championships in Melbourne.

Men’s 1500 Freestyle – Grant Hackett

Hackett is a master at this event and his 400 speed is better this year. He will be too good for Prilukov from Russia or Colbertaldo from Italy, fast and all as those two certainly are.

Men’s 100 Backstroke – Aaron Peirsol

The ultimate competitor and world record holder has too much of all that’s needed to be headed in this event. He should swim faster than his Trials 52.89 world record as well.

Men’s 200 Backstroke – Aaron Peirsol

I’d love to say Ryan Lochte will win this event. He is my favorite US swimmer; tough, hard working and modest. The final will be close but Aaron Peirsol has an uncanny knack of finding the wall first. My guess is he’ll do it again in Beijing ahead of Lochte, second and Ryosuke Irie from Japan, third.

Men’s 100 Breaststroke – Brendan Hansen

Hansen is a better 100 breaststroke swimmer than Kosuke Kitajima. He had a less than impressive US Trials but I’m picking will be good enough to win the 100, especially as the event is his only individual event.

Men’s 200 Breaststroke – Kosuke Kitajima

This should be an easy win for Kitajima. It will be interesting to see what a biased US press accuse him of this time. Bad sportsmanship is just as repulsive when it is practiced by television commentators and newsprint journalists.

Men’s 100 Butterfly – Michael Phelps

Phelps main competition will be Ian Crocker from the US and Frédérick Bousquet from France. They will not be good enough to beat the world’s best male swimmer just now.

Men’s 200 Butterfly – Michael Phelps

In this event Phelps rules supreme. Moss Burmester from New Zealand is a very good swimmer and a couple of months ago won the World SC Championship. If he lived in the US however his very best would not have been good enough to even place in the USA Trials.

Men’s 200 Medley – Michael Phelps

It’s becoming tedious but he will win this one too. His trials swim was a world record 1.54.80. At the Olympics his breaststroke length will have improved.

Men’s 400 Medley – Ryan Lochte

This selection is more from the heart than the head. To beat Phelps, Lochte has to pass Phelps in the breaststroke. Catching him will not be enough. With a hundred to go Lochte with three meters may be too much even for Phelps – I hope so, as I'm a big Lochte fan.

Women’s 50 Freestyle – Lisbeth Trickett

The American sentimental favorite will be Dara Torres. However her best swim at the trials ranks her only fifth in the world. If she lived in Australia she would not even be in the event. This one is going to be a contest between the Australians, the Dutch and the Germans.

Women’s 100 Freestyle – Lisbeth Lenton

Lenton will be too good for the world in this event as well. I suspect Torres will withdraw from the 100 in favor of the 50. Coughlan’s trial swim ranks her seventh in the world. Once again the winner will be Australian, Dutch or German and I think the ocker will take it.

Women’s 200 Freestyle – Laure Manaudou

I would actually prefer to see Katie Hoff win the race but my guess is that Manadou will be too good. Her romantic flights to Italy and back to France and her three changes of coach will find her out in the 400, but in the 200, she should be good enough to win.

Women’s 400 Freestyle – Federica Pellegrini

The Italian and European Champion will be too good for Katie Hoff.

Women’s 800 Freestyle – Katie Hoff

Rebecca Adlington from Great Britain has the 2008 world’s best time in this event. The poms however have a knack of losing when it matters most. My guess is that Katie Hoff has only scratched the surface of her potential in this event. I think she will win and break Janet Evans' world record.

Women’s 100 Backstroke – Natalie Coughlin

Wouldn’t it be good to pick Hayley McGregory as the winner of this event? She is the best backstroke swimmer I’ve seen; not the fittest perhaps or the best underwater but at swimming the stroke she is sublime. Instead Coughlin will win in Beijing. Her underwater speed provides her with an advantage no one will be able to better.

Women’s 200 Backstroke – Margaret Hoelzer

This race will be a close struggle between Hoelzer, Kirsty Coventry and possibly Laure Manaudou. Whoever is coaching Manaudou at the Games should scratch her from this event. She has more than enough to do handling her freestyle events. The Japanese always seem to have good female backstroke swimmers and this year Reiko Nakamura certainly fits that description. For some reason though, they never win the big one. 2008 should be no exception.

Women’s 100 Breaststroke – Leisel Jones

The Australian is a vastly experienced breaststroker now and will be too fast for the rest of the world.

Women’s 200 Breaststroke – Leisel Jones

The American Rebecca Soni is getting better all the time at this event. She is however still two and a half seconds behind Jones and will continue be about that far behind after the Beijing final.

Women’s 100 Butterfly – Lisbeth Lenton

Women’s butterfly is the “weakest” stroke in this Olympic Games. Certainly Inge Bruijn’s 56.61 world record is not going to be broken this year. The race will probably end up as a scrap between Lenton and her Australian team mate Jessica Schipper. The 58.11 that won the US Trial is not going to be anywhere near fast enough to pose any threat.

Women’s 200 Butterfly – Jessica Schipper

The world’s fastest time this year is actually held by the Japanese Yoko Nakanishi. I am however backing the world record holder and the fine tradition of the Australians in this event to produce the winner. The US Trials winner Elaine Breeden swam a good time of 2.06.75 and looked capable of improving on that time.

Women’s 200 Medley – Katie Hoff

This will be one hell of a race. America’s Coughlin and Hoff, Australasia’s Rice and Africa’s Coventry should be the main combatants. Why do I think Hoff will win? Well she’s well coached; she’s tough and just a bit better all rounder than the others. Yes, I think Hoff will be first followed by Rice. But it’s going to be bloody close.

Women’s 400 Medley – Katie Hoff

If Hoff wins the 200 IM she will certainly win this one. She broke the world record in the US Trials and if her past record is anything to go by she will do that again in the main event. Rice and Coventry will be trying to spoil Hoff’s party. But they will not be good enough.

So there they are my 26 Beijing winners. Do you agree?

WTF, OMG, etc. Geeks Like Swimming

By Jane

Swimwatch has a love-hate relationship with social media giant and social news website, Digg.com. When I published a photograph last year, taken out of the side-view mirror of my now-departed Jeep Cherokee, the picture received a lot of attention from the site's members. It gained 2152 votes, or "diggs", and 214 comments. Many people thought that the picture was a fake (in geek-speak, "totally 'Shopped") and argued amongst themselves about how they could tell the photograph had been manipulated until their mothers made them put down their Mac Books. This amused me; it was nothing but a lucky shot, taken at a red traffic light on a clear San Francisco day with a relatively good little digital camera.

Swimwatch has no chance whatsoever of "getting on Digg" with its regular content. I know a little bit about Digg and what appeals to its users because I work at an Internet marketing company. We do everything from search engine optimisation (SEO) to social media marketing, focusing on sites like Digg, StumbleUpon and Reddit. The usual content that appeals to Digg users is about politics, humour, technology, science or entertainment. They aren't much into sports, and when they are, swimming is definitely not their cup of tea.

We have far better luck with StumbleUpon, which brought huge amounts of traffic to our story about the best least-recognised pools in the world.

So can you imagine my surprise this evening when I visited Digg to see this story as the latest to have "gone hot" and made the site's front page?


I want to guess that this has never happened before. Nerds and geeks aren't really into Jason Lezak, Michael Phelps and Brendan Hansen. They'll show more interest in Amanda Beard and Natalie Coughlin, but not because of the women's sporting abilities.

The amazing thing about this is, the story in question isn't that sensational. It's a basic New York Times recap of last night's finals session. More interesting things happened tonight, in some ways, with Hansen being upset for a spot in the men's 200 breaststroke and Mary DeScenza missing out in the 200 butterfly to teenagers Elaine Breeden and Kathleen Hersey.

One thing that is interesting crowds like Digg about swimming nowadays is the swim suit technology. Although I warn you not to read - or at least not to heed - some of the comments on Digg stories, you'll see the Speedo LZRs mentioned. You'll also see the regular accusations of steroids, which is a low-blow in most ways. The sad thing about the drugs argument is that whilst it's very unfair on those who are honest, it is likely that, like Marion Jones, some cheats will slip through the doping cracks and onto Beijing-bound teams.

Adding to the interestingness of this Digg success is the fact that Digg reformulated their algorithm recently to require stories to have more votes in order to make the homepage. Two years ago, a story only needed between 35 and 60 votes to become "popular" and thus highly visible. Now, it generally takes close to 100.

Swimming fans should celebrate this small victory in the land of iPhones, video games, political conspiracy theories and silly, humourous pictures. Whilst it's ignored for the most part, our favourite sport sometimes gets the attention it deserves.

The Ups and Downs of a Trial or Two

By David

This week the United States Olympic Trials are underway in Omaha, Nebraska. Two swimmers swam qualifying times for the Trials while they were training at Aqua Crest. Two others swam fast but were not yet quite at Trial’s level. However 2012 is not that far away. And anyway, the coach would prefer two weeks in London to Beijing.

However the Omaha Olympic Trial Meet was not the only good swimming going on around the world this week. In Monterrey, Mexico the World Triathlon Association held its World Championship biathlon run/swim/run event. The race involved a 2.5 kilometer run followed by a 1 kilometer swim and another 2.5 kilometer run to the finish. Darcy La Fountain from our team was selected to represent the United States in the 50-54 age group section of the event. She did well – winning a silver medal. We are delighted to have a World Championship silver medalist in our midst. Congratulations Darcy, as Muhammad Ali once said, “You done splendid.”

But back to the US Swimming Trials; I’m a fan of Ryan Lochte. A few months ago I met his father and coach at the Hall of Fame pool in Ft. Lauderdale. At the time Lochte was about to go back to Daytona Beach to begin an eight week conditioning period of 90 kilometers a week. Anyone who’s into that sort of aerobic conditioning gets my vote. Unfortunately he was not quite fast enough to take down Michael Phelps in the 400 IM. It must be a hell of a feeling to break a world record and come second in a race. I’m keeping my fingers crossed Lochte can win the 200 backstroke. It will not be easy. One of the world’s best competitors, Aaron Peirsol, will be out to put right his loss to Lochte in the event at the 2007 World Championships.

God I feel for Hayley McGregory. In 2004 she was third in both the 100 and 200 backstroke trials and missed a trip to the Athens Olympic Games. Last year she was at a dinner party I was at after the Nationals in Indianapolis. Because she was born in London and has a parent who’s English I asked her why she didn’t swim for the UK. It would be an easier way to get to the Olympics than swimming for the United States. She said she would never do that. She had committed herself to the US and felt it was important to honour that position. You would think that sort of fidelity would be rewarded. It appears not. So far in this Olympic Trial she has broken the world record only to have it taken away two minutes later, in the next heat, by Natalie Coughlin and she has ended up third in a trial final for the third time. She is such a really, really nice person – it just doesn’t seem right. Incidentally I thought the tone of Coughlin’s interview after claiming back the record momentarily held by McGregory was a bit harsh. It implied Coughlin was not at all pleased someone like McGregory had broken her record. I thought it was an unnecessary put down. Good manners would suggest it could have been done better. McGregory still has to swim the 200 backstroke. It is not her best event but I hope she has a blinder and gets to swim for the nation she has supported so well.

Katie Hoff is swimming well. I was especially impressed with the last 100 of her 400 freestyle. Her 100 splits were 59.33, 1.02.27, 1.01.11 and 59.61. To negative split the last 100 in under a minute will make her really difficult to beat in Beijing; no matter how good Laure Manadou might be. It also means Paul Yetter has done a very good job of coaching his charge. I’m pleased about that. He’s always been very friendly around the pool; quick with a wave and chat about the ins and outs of the swimming world. There is no self important arrogance in this master swim coach.

I’m not at all sure about the wisdom of the huge race programmes that have become popular these days. Phelps is the best example but Hoff, Coughlin and Lochte also have a long shopping list of races. All four are genuinely great athletes. It would be sad if their ambition to take part in many events diminished the quality of their results in Beijing.

I watched Brendan Hansen win the 100 breaststroke and book himself another Olympic meeting with Japan’s breaststroke star, Kosuke Kitajima. You may recall Kitajima beat Hansen in the last Olympics. The reaction of America’s press was biased and crass. They accused Kiajima of cheating by using an illegal butterfly kick. They were right; he did do an illegal kick. But so did every other decent breaststroker in the world. That’s why FINA eventually changed the rule and allowed the butterfly kick that everybody was using anyway. The incident showed America’s sporting press at its worst. I wonder what excuse they will come up with when Kitajima wins in Beijing; as he most certainly will.

There are four more days to go in the trials. Days when the sprinters come out to play and we see the likes of Torres, Weir, Jones and a dozen others do their thing. One thing is certain; America will send as strong a team as ever to Beijing. The Australians are going to have their work cut out. They will however win the men’s 50 and 1500 free and the women’s breaststroke – at least that’s what we’re picking.