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Check out the Smörgåsbord we have for you today...

• May 15th is International Water Safety Day 

• 📰 Headlines: Adam Peaty breaks foot, Bowe Becker retires, Mike Bottom signs extension

• 🤡 Swimming Meme & 📜Swimming Set of the Week

🌍 INTERNATIONAL WATER SAFETY DAY 🌏

May 15th is International Water Safety Day (IWSD). One of my all-time fav days of the year. Schools, cities, and businesses sign up to teach a 30 minute water safety lesson in the classroom. For so many children, this is the first time they have ever talked about water safety. The ultimate goal of IWSD is to get water safety education into our schools where it belongs.

It's also a day to talk about drowning as a severely ignored global health issue.

In 2014, the World Health Organization released its first report on Drowning. They estimated that a staggering 372,000 people died from drowning each year. New figures in 2019 estimated 236,000 though I can't find the data on the WHO website so I will breakdown the stats from 2014, as I have the entire spreadsheet.

The original data set doesn't include 66 countries, most of which are in Africa and Asia, the two regions with the highest drowning rates and most of the world’s children. This includes 7 of the top 10 most populous countries in the world.

Global numbers also exclude drownings due to floods, cataclysms, boating accidents, and water transport mishaps. If your boat sinks and you drown, you don't count. If you drown in a flood, that doesn't count, either. All the migrants drowning in the Mediterranean? They aren't counted.

In the early 2000's, large scale community surveys were completed in Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam in collaboration with The Alliance for Safe Children (TASC), UNICEF, and many supporting agencies.

From these surveys we know that some 250,000 – 450,000 children drown each year in Asia Pacific alone. Survey data from Africa is basically non-existent but Dr. Michael Linnan told me it is highly likely we would see the same thing: lots and lots of drownings, specifically, child drownings.

The large community surveys in Asia found that child drownings were underestimated 4, 5, 6x greater than originally thought. And the main reason for that is the shear nature of drowning: one minute you are alive and the next minute you are dead. If you get malaria you don’t just die. You have an opportunity to go to a health care provider of some sort to get better. Death data is collected in hospitals and healthcare facilities. What's the point of taking your already deceased child to the hospital? Drowning victims rarely get to the hospitals and therefore the data is never collected.

In Cambodia, for example, the large in-person surveys showed that only 6% of all child drownings had been reported. Drowning is the leading killer of children in Cambodia - they average 6 child drowning deaths every day. It’s the leading killer of children in dozens of other countries, too. Vietnam loses 10 kids a day. Bangladesh 40.

We’re in the infancy of both awareness, fundraising, and action. We continue to not recognize this at the highest levels.

The annual United Nation’s State of the World’s Children Report has never talked about drowning ever - not one single time over 30+ years.

The UN Millennium Development Goals, started back in 2000, don't reference drowning, even though reducing child mortality is a serious goal. Many low-and-middle income countries failed to meet their child mortality goal because of, you guessed it, drowning deaths.

In 2015, the UN set up new goals called the Sustainable Development Goals that will run through 2030. There are 169 goals inside of 17 topics. Guess how many times drowning is talked about?

We've got Smokey the Bear billboards near my home in Virginia Beach where we never have wildfires. Where is water safety's Smokey the Bear and why isn't the federal government running campaigns like this in states and cities with the worst drowning numbers? Australia has been doing this since the 1980's led by the one and only Laurie Lawrence.

"The yanks, mate. Go and have a look at the stats in the under 5 age group. It's bullshit. It's bullshit what they're doing - how many kids they are drowning." - Laurie Lawrence

According to the CDC, we lose almost 4,000 Americans every year to drowning with ~900 of those being children.

Last Thanksgiving, we welcomed our second daughter into the world. Nobody said anything about drowning or water safety to us. Water safety education needs to begin in our hospitals. Then, it must continue in our schools as soon as possible -- both in class and in the pool. Every Pre-K program in America should try to include swim lessons. The earlier the better.

Australian researcher Dr. Robyn Jorgensen showed in her vast study that children that learn how to swim between the ages of 3 and 5 are vastly ahead of their non-swimming counterparts -- anywhere from 6 to 15 months ahead when it comes to cognitive skills, problem solving, counting, language skills, and following instructions.

"A man is not learned until he can read, write and swim." - Plato

After over a decade of learning about water safety, it has come apparent to me that the most important, actionable thing I can do is focus on changing my local community. How do you get water safety education put into your local school curriculum? That is my new focus in my home town of Virginia Beach where we have zero water safety in our schools. Without the beach and swimming, Virginia Beach would have nothing. Yet, we don't teach our kids how to walk out onto the beach and read the waves. Virginia Beach is home to thousands of military personnel including the Navy SEALs. Wouldn't it be nice for recruitment if every child in Virginia Beach learned how to swim from a very early age? Difficult to become a Navy SEAL without being a great swimmer. Did I mention we have over 10 rec centers with swimming pools and staff located all over our city?

The name of Dr. Robyn Jorgensen's study has always struck a chord with me. "Adding Capital to Young Australians" -- swimming isn't just about saving lives, but giving our young people a head start in the world.

"Adding Capital to Young Virginia Beachers" has a nice ring to it. Perhaps that will be the name of my presentation when I show up to my City Council meeting with 500 swimmers from all our local teams.

Happy International Water Safety Day!

📰 SWIMMING HEADLINES

ADAM PEATY BREAKS FOOT

Looks like we are going to have a new World Champion breaststroker this year. Adam Peaty posted on his social channels that he fractured his foot in the gym. Brett spoke with him on Friday. Check it out:

MIKE BOTTOM SIGNS EXTENSION

Obi-wan Kenobi, as I like to call him, has signed a 5 year extension with the University of Michigan. If I had to describe Coach Bottom in one word I would say, "captivating". When he speaks, you listen.

"These aren't the splits you're looking for."

BOWE BECKER RETIRES

Bowe Becker overcame rheumatoid arthritis and losing his spot in the International Swimming League to become an essential part of Team USA's winning Men's 4x100 Freestyle Relay in Tokyo.

He went from waiting tables to becoming an Olympic gold medalist. He announced on Instagram last week that he will be hanging up his swimsuit.

This is his Olympic story.

BRETT HAWKE CLIPS OF THE WEEK

• Taper Time with Kyle Chalmers & Zac Incerti: Aussie Trials start in 48 hours. Here is what Kyle Chalmers and Zac Incerti are doing during taper right now.

• How Carson Foster trains IM at the University of Texas: Eddie Reese likes to work on your weak stroke -- which means a lot of breaststroke in the mornings for Carson Foster.

• Kyle Chalmers DREAM 100 Free Splits: Can Kyle Chalmers be the first man to bring the 100 Free back in under 24 seconds?

• Who do you prefer: Caeleb Dressel, Ben Proud, or Florent Manaudou?

Today on INSIDE with BRETT HAWKE...

Dan Daly talks drylands, best exercises for swimmers, shoulder care

Dan Daly is a New York City based Strength & Conditioning Coach that specializes in working with marathoners, triathletes, masters and open water swimmers. His content creation for swimming strength and drylands is some of the best on the internet. Be sure to follow him on Instagram. Receive personalized and individualized training from Dan at TrainDaly.com

SET OF THE WEEK

IM sets with Carson Foster

Got a text from Carson...

Here's Eddie Reese's IM set from last week.

WU:

2x

3x100 free @1:20

2x100 kick @1:40

3x100 IM @1:30

2x100 kick @1:40

Main set:

2x400 free @4:30 (3:41,3:39)

4x125 fly/free x25 @1:40 (1:10s)

3x300 free @3:30 (2:46,2:44)

4x100 breast @1:40 (1:01/1:02s)

2x200 free @2:20 (1:47,1:45)

4x125 back @1:40 (1:10s)

2x100 free @1:10 (51s)

4x100 breast @1:40 (1:01/1:02s)

300 warm down

🤡 SWIMMING MEME OF THE WEEK

Introducing, Darth Nesty.