Monday, September 9, 2013

Swift Current Trakers for Truth

"Diana Nyad is now facing backlash over her record-breaking 110-mile swim from Cuba to Florida as other members of the small community of marathon swimmers are questioning whether she cheated."
On social media and the online Marathon Swimmers Forum, long-distance swimmers have been debating whether 64-year-old Nyad got a boost from the boat that was accompanying her - either by getting in it or holding onto it - during a particularly speedy stretch of her swim.
 
'When you know how hard it is, you kind of want those details,' said Andrew Malinak, a Seattle long-distance swimmer who crunched the data available from the GPS positions tracked on Nyad's website and concluded that he didn't trust what he saw.
Nyad's navigator and one of the swim's official observers told The Associated Press this weekend that Nyad didn't cheat and that she was aided during the rapid part of her swim by a swift current.


'Generally the rules are: You walk in, you swim across and you walk out, and you do it under your own power,' said Munatones, who consulted with Nyad for this swim and observed her attempts in 2011 and 2012.
The elaborate, full-body wet suit and protective mask Nyad wore to protect herself from venomous jellyfish actually weighed her down, Munatones said.
'To put that on is like putting on a wedding gown in the ocean,' he said. 'It's different from the English Channel rules, but the water is different from the English Channel.'
MailOnline

12 comments:

Icepick said...

In these times one should probably always be suspicious of exceptional performances by older athletes. (And younger ones, too.) I'd like to know if (a) Nyad was on any PEDs, if so which ones, and if that is considered a problem in this realm of endeavor.

Lem Vibe Bandit said...

Questions were raised about Diana's world record breaking feat when it was discovered she had dated both, Alex Rodrigues and Lance Armstrong, back before they turned pro.

I'm Full of Soup said...

Heh - I have Runkeeper on my Iphone- it is a nifty little software that tracks my mileage and speed when I am bicycling. Once I turned it on when I was driving around in my car and after 40 minutes, I sent the Runkeeper results to a few friends to show them my average cycling speed that day was 29 MPH!

Shouting Thomas said...

Yes, Icepick, my quick glance at Nyad's pic immediately raised suspicions that she's on PEDs.

AllenS said...

Rosie Ruiz of The Water.

Icepick said...

Questions were raised about Diana's world record breaking feat when it was discovered she had dated both, Alex Rodrigues and Lance Armstrong, back before they turned pro.

LOL

Lem, I'm glad you run this site!

Lem Vibe Bandit said...

I had a little help with that one ;)

edutcher said...

Weirder things have happened, but most of the examples I could give have to do with aviation.

William said...

If she wore a chain mail bikini she could do away with the burdensome wet suit. The chain mail bikini also offers a modicum of protection against shark bites. It's a wonder more ocean swimmers don't wear chain mail bikinis. If you pass this advice on to ten swimmers, you will win the lottery..

Evi L. Bloggerlady said...

Questions were raised about Diana's world record breaking feat when it was discovered she had dated both, Alex Rodrigues and Lance Armstrong, back before they turned pro.

Cougar sighting!

Lem Vibe Bandit said...

Rosie Ruiz of The Water

Rosie Ruiz lol.

Chip Ahoy said...

She took a shortcut underwater.

She used an experimental jellyfish suit, in the shape of a jellyfish, to fake out the real jellyfish, and to collect bits of food as she swam as real jellyfish do, and it was discovered her nearly transparent jellyfish suit exposed illegal squid suit jet packs and illegal squid suit ink packs as well. When questioned the athlete offered the defense, "Jelleyfish don't just hang there and float, you know. And a girl needs a little ink-smoke obfuscation protection out there in the ocean sometimes."