Katie Hoff Swimming at the 2010 Southern California Grand Prix

02/08/10

1) What’s the future hold in store for the “professional swimmer”? That’s the hot topic the past few weeks in the swimming blog-o-sphere. Here’s what the experts are saying: Swimnetwork’s Casey Barrett ignited the conversation with his columns about the current dark times for the professional swimmer, Part 1 and Part 2, while Swimnetwork’s Bob Schaller would rather see the market decide professional swimmers’ value.  Meanwhile, “Gold Medal Mel” Stewart encourages professional swimmers to reach out to various new media platforms here. Over on Swimming World, Garrett McCaffrey sat down with Trent Staley to discuss the future of professional swimming. Personally, I’m still a fan of the swimmer MTV-inspired reality show, “Real World: Olympic Swimmers.” Drama… in Speedos.

2) Locked in an indoor pool during the winter months means less sunlight exposure, which means a loss of Vitamin D. This isn’t a problem with you warmer-climate swimmers, but in the northern states like Michigan (where I’m from) we’d receive 10-20 hours of sunlight during the entire month of January. We’d skip practice and sun-tan in the basement hallway near the only window that’d receive any sunlight just to feel the warmth against our pasty-white skin. Well, now there’s a month to recognize such deficiency. Kast-A-Way blog reports that the UV Foundation established February as “National Vitamin D Deficiency Month.” So, swimmers experiencing dark days (I’m not just talking to the professional swimmers out there) perhaps make your swim coach aware of the benefits of receiving Vitamin D from sunlight exposure. It could be integrated somehow into your taper practices.

3) Yesterday’s Super Bowl victory marked an early start to Mardi Gras in New Orleans. But the University of New Orleans swim team continues to march on. Recently, the Privateer women earned the Scholar-Athlete All-American recognition for the first time in team history. Last summer, the Lakefront Arena Aquatic Center was re-opened, allowing the swim teams to compete in the aquatic center for the first time since Hurricane Katrina hit. Great to see the city, and its swim team, achieve success.

4) A teacher named Dan Martin will swim, run, and bike across the world in a “global triathlon” the BBC reports. He will swim across the Atlantic Ocean, planning on the swim taking about 4 months. He will use a GPS to track his progress and return to the spot he stopped that night to sleep. The nice thing is I don’t think he’ll have much competition. He’ll probably win the Atlantic Ocean Race. Mr. Martin hopes to raise money for orphanages around the world.

5) Missouri Grand Prix this weekend. The best swimmer on the planet, Michael Phelps, returns to the pool and will face-off against the second-best swimmer on the planet, Ryan Lochte. Phelps cranked out a fast 400 IM against Hidemasa Sano in Long Beach in January. Should be interesting to see how close - or not close - Phelps gets to reclaiming his former world record in the 200 IM post-FINA suit ban.

6) Swim Video of the Week: Continuing on the New Orleans coverage, here’s a great video about USA Swimming Foundation’s Make A Splash program in New Orleans. Nice to see the Foundation doing some good work in the Big Easy. Check it out.