Morning, Nerd.

Welcome to the Swimnerd Newsletter where each week we highlight the most interesting stuff going on in swimming. This week...

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📰 SWIMMING HEADLINES  

Olympic Gold Medal Stolen

South African swimmer, Joan Harrison (now Breetzke), had her 1952 100 Backstroke gold medal stolen from her grandson's house in London. Thankfully, it was found by a landscape company and returned along with Joan's gold medal from the 1954 Commonwealth Games. 

Grandson Craig is said to be looking into safety deposit boxes this week. 

Coach Pete Hovland Retiring 

Oakland University swim coach Pete Hovland is finally calling it a career. The Men's team has won 44 consecutive conference championships. The women, 28. He's been named D2 Coach of the Year 7x. In the mid 90's, the men won 4 national championships in a row. After moving to D1, Oakland qualified for NCAA's 14x. 

Interestingly, he took over for another coaching legend, Ernie Maglischo, who might have written the most influential swimming books of a generation. If you don't have a copy of, "Swimming Fastest", you should. 

15.80

Arizona State's Cody Bybee smashed a 50 yard underwater kick with fins in 15.80. Sir Herb, we are gunna need underwater footage of that underwater next time. TYIA.

TYR Pro Swim Series kicks off in Knoxville

Simone Manuel will compete in her first long course meet since the Olympics almost a year and a half ago. In October, she swam exhibition at the ASU/Wisconsin dual meet. She went 22.1 and 48.4. Simone is still the American Record holder in the 50 (23.97 in 2017) and 100 LCM Freestyle (52.04 in 2019). 

Penny Oleksiak will also back after tearing her meniscus. And, there should be an Ahmed Hafnaoui sighting. 

As well as...

Jordan Crooks, Bjorn Seeliger, Signe Bro, Katie Grimes, Bella Sims, Katie Ledecky, Bobby Finke, Drew Kibbles N' Bits, Kylie Masse, Justin Ress, Kieran Smith, Regan Smith, Ryan Murphy, Leah Smith, Chase Kalisz, Abbey Weitzeil, and many more.

ASU's Pro Group showing up in Knoxville:

Wu Peng is Making a Comeback!

World Champion Wu Peng is training at Mission Viejo and is also set to compete in Knoxville. Wu won medals in the 200 Fly at a whopping 6 different World Championship meets! He even tasted victory in front of the home crowd of Shanghai back in 2006.

I was told he could kick 50 LCM underwater and break 23. Without fins. Eat your heart out, Cody Bybee.

Dude was a beast to say the least.

But, he also had trouble controlling his weight at times. In fact, his Wikipedia page even says his Mom first got him into swimming for weight loss when he was just 4 years old!

Once, while I was in China making big green pace clocks, Wu took me to lunch. You could say I went head-to-head with Wu Peng and ate his lunch.

🏊‍♂️ SWIM GUY OF THE WEEK 🤣

Sometimes you want to swim real bad. After constructing a pool in his basement, this guy got busted by city officials. The next time he had his inspection, he made it look like a golf simulator and took the city inspector to a Chiefs - Bills game and got him hammered. 

🤣

BRETT HAWKE CLIPS OF THE WEEK

This week on INSIDE with BRETT HAWKE...

Meagen Nay is Australian Dolphin #667, having swum in two Olympics (2008, 2012) where she placed 7th and 5th, respectively, in the 200 Backstroke. In 2010, Meagen became Commonwealth Champion in the 2 Back in 2:07.56. She trained under Michael Bohl at St. Peter's Western.

Meagen has faced tremendous tragedy in her life. Both her Dad and brother passed away in separate car accidents, 16 years apart. 

Most recently, you may have heard her as an Aussie commentator for Amazon Prime!

📝 SWIM SET OF THE WEEK

Erik Vendt 30x1000's

With the smell of training trips still in the air, here's an ode to Erik Vendt, who did 30x1000's.

"We started at 1 on 11:00, 1 on 10:00, 1 on 9:50, 1 on 9:40, 1 on 9:30. Then 1 on 10:15 and 3 on 9:45, 1 on 9:30. Then 5 on 10:00 and so on.

Around #17-#19 we realised that Erik hadn’t eaten anything (ANYTHING!) before he came in to train. So we threw a 11:00 1000 around #21 or #22 and shoved a granola bar down his throat with some sports drink or water.

He hung tough through #23 and #24, and blasted through the last 6 where the intervals stayed at 10:00."

Click on the link above to read the entire story. 

🤡 SWIMMING MEME OF THE WEEK

Memes about doing 100x100's are on sale this week. BOGO.

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