Interesting Facts

6th August 1926 - The American Olympic athlete, Gertrude Ederle, became the first woman to swim across the English Channel. It took her 14 hours, 39 minutes to swim the 56 kilometers from France to England. She held the record for 35 years. 1945 - The world's first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. An estimated 140,000 people were killed by the bomb and its aftermath.

Scientists in Canada have been able to prove what we have all suspected; people pee in the swimming pool. (Whilst it is not possible to find the actual  culprit (the colour of the water doesn't change), after monitoring  two public pools in Canada the researchers found that a typical large swimming pool (   a large pool (about one-third the size of an Olympic pool) contains  75 litres of urine – enough to fill a medium-sized dustbin. If you don't swim in public pools, but you enjoy a spa experience, they also tested hot tubs, which were found to have far higher urine levels.  In one anonymous survey,  19% of adults admitted  to having urinated in a swimming pool at least once. And it seems professional swimmers are the worst offenders, as they don't have "time" to get out and use the facilities. Please!  Eew!  I can swear, with my hand on my heart that I have never peed in the pool.  I always go before I swim  ...

Rats are good swimmers. One this week was caught after it staged an escape across 400m of open ocean. (All that swimming around in open sewers obviously paid off.)