The following overview covers the news and facts that characterized the swimming world in 2011.
JANUARY
04 - Federica Pellegrini has split from Stefano Morini, who was named head coach of the Federal training centre in Verona at the end of 2009 and says she is ready to work with Philippe Lucas, Laure Manaudou’s ex-coah.
07 - Korean swimming icon Park Tae-hwan has recently confirmed that he will be trained by Australian coach Michael Bohl until the 2012 London Olympics.
Olympic champion Oussama Mellouli has been voted 2010 Tunisian Athlete of the Year in a poll held by "Le Renouveau" newspaper. At the World short-course championships in Dubai he won 4 medals including gold for the 1500 metres freestyle.
11 - Ryan Lochte, of USA, and Therese Alshammar of Sweden were named male and female World Swimmers of the Year for 2010 by FINA. Valerio Cleri of Italy and Brazilian Ana Marcela Cunha are the Open water swimmers of the year. Other awards going to Russian Natalia Ishchenko in synchronized Swimming; diving: Patrick Hausding (GER) and Ruolin Chen (CHN); waterpolo: Vanja Udovicic (SRB) and Elizabeth Armstrong (USA).
31 - South Africa: Randall Bal (USA) and Elizabeth Simmonds (GBR) emerged best male and female swimmers of the inaugural SA International Invitational Swimming Meet at Newton Park Swimming Pool in Port Elizabeth on 29 and 30 January.
Former European junior champion Luiza Hryniewicz, 21-year-old, from Poland, poses for next month's Playboy.
FEBRUARY
14 - Australiafs two-time Olympic swimming champion Michael Klim will make a return to competitive swimming, almost 4 years after he retired. Klim, 33, retired after the World championships in Melbourne [when he failed to travel to Sydney with the Australian team for the 'Duel in the Pool' meet with the United States].
16 - Rob Greenwood will take up an interim coaching role at the British Gas ITC in Stirling, Scotland, until September 2012. He replaces Australian Doug Frost who left the post for personal reasons.
No bidders for 2012 LC Europeans. At its May meeting in Iceland, the European swimming league (LEN) will discuss the lack of a host nation for its 2012 European l/c Championships after Vienna confirmed that it no longer wished to be considered a candidate. The worldwide financial crisis and the high costs of staging large multi-sports events have contributed to a harsh climate for those running international sports and seeking hosts for their events.
MARCH
03 - Emily Seebohm, Australian Olympic champion, has signed a sponsorship deal with Arena. The 18-year-old: "I'm very enthusiastic for the agreement with Arena and pround to join a team composed of Aaron Peirsol, Kirsty Conventry and Paul Biedermann.”
06 - France-based Federica Pellegrini broke the Italian record in the 400 metres freestyle at the national championships. Pellegrini finished in a time of 3:57.59, taking 1.76 seconds off Alessia Filippi’s mark set two years ago at the SC Europeans in Rijeka.
09 - British Swimming has appointed Mark Perry as the Development Coach. Perry, who started his career with British Swimming in 2006 as an Open Water consultant, is also the Open Water Performance Manager.
Inge Sørensen, a Danish swimmer who held the distinction of being the youngest Olympic Games medallist in swimming, has died in New Jersey, USA. She was 86.
16 - Five-time Olympic swimming champion Ian Thorpe is to be based in Tenero, Switzerland, under the guidance of Russian Gennadi Touretski, the former coach of swimming legend Alexander Popov. Thorpe, 28, announced the return to competitive swimming early on February.
18 - Hungary’s world champion Katinka Hosszu (Southern California) has won the NCAA title for the women’s 200-yard individual medley, at the University of Texas Jamail Swimming Center on Thursday. Hosszu, 21, clocked a time of 1:53.39 seconds, to win the Trojans' first title in the event since Kaitlin Sandeno in 2004.
19 - Hungary’s world champion Katinka Hosszu (Southern California) has won the NCAA title for the women’s 400-yard individual medley, at the University of Texas Jamail Swimming Center. Hosszu, 21, clocked a time of 3:59.75 seconds, becoming the second woman in history to break the 4-minute barrier for the distance.
British Swimming has reached a four-year broadcast deal with BBC to televise all aquatic sports events leading up to the 2012 London Olympics. BBC will also televise the trails for the GB Swimming team, the test event of the Aquatics Centre in the Olympic Park which takes place in March 2012.
23 - Swimming Japan has been forced to move the Japan Open swim meet to Osaka, following the devastating 8.9 magnitude earthquake that struck the country on March 11. The meeting was scheduled at the Tatsumi International Swim Centre in Tokyo from May 20-22. The decision was made following a report assessing damage to the facility caused by the catastrophic earthquake.
25 - Nathan Adrian (California, Berkeley) broke the American record for the men’s 50-yard freestyle timing 18.66 at the University of Minnesota Aquatic Center on Thursday. Adrian lowered his time of 18.71 that he set to win the title two years ago. In other highlights, Stanford’s team (Coville, Wayne, Allen, Staab) set the new American record for the 200-yard freestyle relay with 1:15.26. Stanford broke its own record of 1:15.84, set in the prelims
MAY
03 - Lubos Krizko has tested positive for the banned substance tamoxifen. The 31-year-old Slovakian swimmer tested positive during the European Championships in Budapest in August 2010, when he placed 6th in the men’s 50 metres backstroke.
04 - Italian swimming star Massimiliano Rosolino, 31, has confirmed he will quit the sport after the London Games next year. Massi will remain in the swimming world as a manager of the Pescopagano swimming complex (Potenza province, in Basilicata area). He didn’t mention any news over waterpolo future.
Tom Jager, one of the greatest sprint freestylers in swimming history, is the new head coach at Washington State University. Jager will move from the University of Idaho and replaces Erica Quam, who announced her retirement from collegiate coaching last month.
12 - USA Swimming has changed the Minneapolis Grand Prix set for November 2011, into a long course meter competition to allow participants an opportunity to achieve Olympic Trials qualifying standards.
Korea's swimming star Park Tae-hwan signed a two-year sponsorship agreement with Fila. Fila will provide the swimmer of all of his required sports apparel and equipment, excluding the swimsuit and swim cap.
16 - LEN defines major Competition Schedule. Antwerp, Belgium, will host the 31st European Swimming Championships in 2012. The contest will take place in a temporary pool installed in the Sportpaleis, from May 16-27. LEN also allocated the 15th European Short Course Swimming Championships to the French city of Chartres, November 22-25, 2012. The schedule was updated this past weekend at the LEN Congress in Reykjavik. This year’s SC Europeans will take place in Szczecin (POL) while the 32nd LC Europeans were already awarded to Berlin (August 13-24, 2014).
30 - Adelaide was chosen on Monday to host the 2012 olympic swimming trials, swimming Australia said. The event will be held at the State Aquatic Centre at Marion from March 15-22. The city also will host the 2013 national championships.
JUNE
07 - Canada’s Olympian Elaine Tanner is selling by auctiuon the medals she won at the 1968 Games in Mexico City.
13 - Janet Evans, for so long the world 400m and 800m free record holder, is 39 and working her way back to form in the race pool. Much hype about what she might be capable of was set in the context of two masters records this weekend 15 years after her last big competitive moment: 4:23.82 and 8:59.06 at the eponymous meet she took part in, the Janet Evans Invitational in Fullerton, Orange County.
19 - Rotislav Vitek and Pilar Geijo have won the 46th Capri Napoli, the 6th race of the FINA Open Water Swimming Grand Prix. Vitek of Czech Republic, completed the 36km race in a time of 7h05:49. Argentina's Geijo won the female contest in 7h34:21.
20 - At Seven Hills Trophy at Foro Italico in Rome the Circolo Canottieri Aniene swim club has won the Italian championships for fifth straight year. Aniene had great performances in women’s event with Federica Pellegrini.
22 - Brazil's backstroke sprinter Fabiola Molina has been forced to withdraw from the world championships in Shanghai next month after receiving a two-month anti-doping ban following a positive test for a banned stimulant. The 36-year-old tested positive for methylhexaneamine during an event in Rio de Janeiro in April.
JULY
04 - Four Brazilian swimmers has tested positive for the banned diuretic furosemide. Nicholas dos Santos, Henrique Barbosa, Vinicius Waked and double world champion Cesar Cielo tested positive for furosemide at the national championships in May.
14 - CAS will perform an hearing on July 20 for a final decision over Cesar Cielo, Nicholas dos Santos, Henrique Barbosa and Vinicius Waked. The four brazilian swimmers tested positive for furosemide at the national championships in May.
The FINA Bureau held its meeting on July 13-14 in Shanghai. A record number of 181 countries (2200 athletes) have confirmed their participation in the 14th FINA World Championships and 65 TV networks accredited.
15 - Kazan (RUS) and Guadalajara (MEX) has been chosen to host the 2015 and 2017 world swimming championships, the sport's governing body FINA said on Friday. The cities defeated a rival bid by Hong Kong.
21 - Olympic and world champion Cesar Cielo has been allowed to his 50m and 100m freestyle world titles in Shanghai next week after the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) upheld a decision by the Brazilian swimming federation to impose just a warning.
28 – Ryan Lochte beat Michael Phelps by 0.16 seconds with a World-record time in the latest challenge at the world swimming championships in Shanghai tonight. The US swimmer lowered his own mark in the 200 metres individual medley final, touching in 1:54.00 (0.10 seconds better than his time from 2009).
Olympic medallist Federica Pellegrini is to be the new face of Italian Olympic bid. The Italian Olympic Committee named Rome as its candidate city for the 2020 Summer Games. The 22-year-old swimmer from Mirano (Venice province) and based in Paris, is the first woman to win 200 and 400 metres freestyle at two consecutive world swimming championships.
At its second meeting in Shanghai (CHN), FINA Bureau approved a pilot project for the creation of an “Athlete’s Biological Passport”, the most advanced tool in the fight against doping in Sport. The “Athlete’s Biological Passport” allows the establishment of a longitudinal study and haematological profile on each athlete, with the aim of detecting if blood manipulations are done in order to carry a higher percentage of oxygen (thus “masking” any intake of forbidden substances).
Germany’s Hendrik Rijkens and Natalia Charlos of Poland won the final leg of the 2011 European Open Water Swimming Cup in Hoorn, Netherlands, on Saturday.
AUGUST
04 - Fabio Scozzoli of Italy set a new European record time of 26.11 seconds for the men's 50 metres breaststroke at the national short-course swimming championships in Ostia (Rome province). He bettered the previous record of 26.14secs set by fellow-countryman Alessandro Terrin dressing an high-tech body suits, set in the semifinals of the 2009 Europeans in Istanbul.
06 - Former Olympian Alessio Boggiato of Italy retired from swimming yesterday after finishing fifth with the 4X50m medley relay at the short-course Italian championships in Ostia. Boggiatto, 30, won the gold medal at the 2001 World Championships in Fukuoka, Japan, in the 400 metres individual medley.
08 - At the end of the Italian short-course championships in Ostia, Federica Pellegrini announced that she ended her working relationship with coach Philippe Lucas. Lucas, who also coaches Amaury Leveaux and Camelia Potec, and Pellegrini began to work together in 2010.
Bill Matson, the FINA Vice President, has died, swimming's world governing body have announced. He was 72.
12 - Olympic champion Federica Pellegrini, who recently split from Philippe Lucas, chose her new coach, the Italian Federico Bonifacenti who was already in the staff with her long-time mentor Alberto Castagnetti.
13 - Italy's Martina Grimaldi and Richard Weinberger of Canada won the London 10km marathon test event in The Serpentine, Hyde Park. Grimaldi, silver medallist in Shanghai, completed the 6 laps course in 2h02:49.5. Weinberger won the male contest in 1h50:49.8.
SEPTEMBER
07 - Born on May 21, 1920, Keo Nakama passed away in Hawaii, he was 91.
12 - Alex Baumann, the medley great of the 1980s, has quit a top job in Canadian sport to take up a role as CEO for High Performance Sport New Zealand.
Massimiliano rosolino intends to base himself in Tenero to train with Ian Thorpe and Gennadi Touretzky at the Swiss Swimming Training Base, to strengthen his bid to attend at the fifth Olympic Games.
Double Olympic champion Yana Klochkova has been named Friend of UEFA EURO 2012. The 29-year-old Ukrainian was awarderd Hero of Ukraine in 2004, after she won the 200 and 400 individual medlay at the Athens Games.
Korea's swimming star Park Tae-hwan will use the KRW50 million (almost 46.500US$) bonus for winning gold in the 400m freestyle at last Worlds in Shanghai, to help young swimmers in his country.
19 - Nottingham's Rebecca Adlington, world 800m freestyle champion, won the best female swimmer award and James Goddard, 4th just 0.1sec away from the podium in the 200m medley at world championships in Shanghai was voted best male swimmer for 2011, at the Hurlingham Club in London. Keri-Anne Payne, world marathon champion, took the open water award while her coach Sean Kelly, head of the the Stockport Intensive Training Centre where Goddard also trains, became the first coach to receive the Lifetime Achievement Award.
Double Olympian Ryan Lochte was named USA Swimming Athlete of the Year. Lochte, who became the first swimmer to break a world record since the banning of polyurethane suits, also received a Performance Award for his record-breaking swim in the 200m IM (1:54.00) at World Championships.
Gemma Mengual, Spain's most successful athlete in synchronized swimming, revealed Saturaday that she will return to competition after a two-year absence.
OCTOBER
07 - Britain’s Olympic medallist Cassandra Patten has announced her retirement because of an oingoing shoulder injury. Patten, 24, who won the bronze medal in the 10 km Open Water at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, also has two World Championship silver medals for the same discipline.
22 - American swimmer Missy Franklin set a short-course world record in the 200 backstroke clocking 2:00.03 seconds at a World Cup meet in Berlin. Franklin, 16, shaved 0.15 seconds off the old mark set at the same meet by Shiho Sakai of Japan in 2009.
NOVEMBER
04 - Swimming legend Ian Thorpe, returned to form entering his first final in a international event since Athens 2004, at the Singapore round of the Arena World Cup today.
05 - Ian Thorpe's comeback world cup closes with a 54.09 effort over 100m butterfly leaving the Australian in 11th place in heats in Singapore today.
13 - Chad Le Clos (RSA) and Therese Alshammar (SWE) won the Arena World Cup at the end of the Tokyo round of the series on Sunday.
20 - Ryan Lochte and Melissa Franklin were named male and female Swimmers of the Year for 2011 at USA Swimming's Golden Goggles Awards in Los Angeles on Sunday.
27 - Italian Olympic champion Federica Pellegrini has confirmed that she has split with her Italian coach Federico Bonifacenti.
DECEMBER
14 - Olympic champion Stephanie Rice has troubled Games preparation since she has undergone surgery to repair a tendon tear in her right shoulder. Ragnhild Hveger, a Danish Olympian in 1936 has died. She was 90.
16 – The United States set a women’s 100m medley relay world mark at the Duel in the Pool in Atlanta. Natalie Coughlin, Rebecca Soni, Dana Vollmer and Missy Franklin clocked a time of 3:45.56. Duel in the Pool.
Duel in the Pool. Britain’s Elizabeth Simmonds won silver in the 200m backstroke in a new European record time of 2:00.83 improving her previous mark by 0.08s that she has set winning at the 2009 Duel in Manchester.
19 - Mireia Belmonte and Aschwin Wildeboer were declared swimmers of the meet as the Spanish s/c Championships drew to a close today in Madrid. They won 9 gold medals each.
The American hosts of the Mutual of Omaha Duel in the Pool scored a runaway victory 181.5 points to 80.5 over the Europe All-Stars in Atlanta's Georgia tech pool.
21 - Flavio Bomio (69), a member of FINA's Technical Open Water Swimming Committee and one-time coach to the Swiss national team who once guided Flavia Rigamonti, is accused of sexual misconduct with 20 alleged victims.
23 – FINA and LEN suspend Bomio. FINA suspend Mr. Flavio Bomio from his position of the FINA Technical Open Water Swimming Committee Honorary Secretary with immediate effect. LEN, the European swim league, also acted, suspending Bomio from his role as Chairman of LEN's technical open water group.
27 - IOC Announces schedule for Olympic Games. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced the schedule for Swimming competition at 2012 Games. The tournament will be held from July 28 to August 4 at the Aquatics Centre. Qualifying session from 10 a.m. while semifinals and finals will start at 7.30 p.m. GMT.