…The competition pool at the South Australia Aquatic Centre has been named after Australia’s most successful Paralympian: Matt Cowdrey. At only 23 years old still, in three Paralympic Games, Cowdrey has amassed 23 total medals, with 13 of them being gold. “Matt’s success at the Paralympics is an inspiration to all Australians – his resilience, dedication and attitude make him a wonderful ambassador for the state,” said South Australia premier Jay Weatherill. The massive new complex in South Australia opened last year to the tune of $100 million and was the host of the 2012 Australian Olympic Trials meet…
…Irish Olympian Barry Murphy has returned to his hometown of Dublin to train on a full-time basis for the first time in 8 years. He’s spent the last two years working with Mike Bottom and Club Wolverine in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and the four before that at the University of Tennessee where he broke the School Record in the 50 free in 19.14. While with Club Wolverine, Murphy broke the Irish National Record in the 100 breaststroke with a 1:00.77, which also qualified him for the Olympics: the only Irish male swimmer to do so. Now Murphy, who is a week shy of his 27th birthday, is back home training with 18-year old Brendan Hyland of the Tallaght Swim Club. Murphy will hopefully mentor the bright young star, even though they have very different specialties; earlier this year, Hyland became the first Irishman under the two-minute barrier in the 200 fly…
…In a bit of an interesting deviation from the recently devastating run of sexual abuse by swim coaches, it appears as though a British coach who sent sexually explicit texts to teenagers did so on accident. According to British paper the Telegraph, 24-year old coach Craig Daniel Evans was sentenced to 18 months in prison in late July, but was freed when authorities discovered that he had sent the message to everyone on his Blackberry Messenger contacts list. Apparently the glitch came from not knowing exactly how to use his cell phone to send the messages to just the intended recipients…