m2sport

Mark Warkentin qualified for his first Olympics at the age of 28 today at the 2008 FINA Open Water World Swimming Championships in the 10K open water race. The National Champion earned his spot at the Olympics after finishing 7th in a time of 1:53:37.1. The top 10 finishers in the race automatically qualified for the Olympics where the 10K marathon swimming event will make its first appearance at the Olympic Games. Warkentin is the first swimmer to be named to the U.S. Olympic Team, with Olympic Trials for pool swimming being held June 29 - July 6

I can’t get enough of surfing after a vacation in Maui. Steph and I did the usual tourist stuff but found ourselves strangely attracted to Ho’okipa beach. It’s a very famous beach on Maui’s North Shore. Big time surf spot and a world class windsurfing and kiteboarding scene. Every morning I’d go sit on the beach and watch the surfers come in and go out. I’ve never surfed myself but I’m ready to give it go. The header of this site is from the same trip.

Just in case you were wondering. I know I was.

It’s a question that has taxed generations of the finest minds in physics: do humans swim slower in syrup than in water? And since you ask, the answer’s no. Scientists have filled a swimming pool with a syrupy mixture and proved it.

“What appealed was the bizarreness of the idea,” says Edward Cussler of the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, who led the experiment. It’s a question that also fascinated his student Brian Gettelfinger, a competitive swimmer who narrowly missed out on a place at this summer’s Olympic Games in Athens.

Cussler and Gettelfinger took more than 300 kilograms of guar gum, an edible thickening agent found in salad dressings, ice cream and shampoo, and dumped it into a 25-metre swimming pool, creating a gloopy liquid twice as thick as water. “It looked like snot,” says Cussler.

Read the rest of the article at nature.com