Watch Swimming This Weekend!

This upcoming weekend is a great showcase for basically what this blog has been talking about this whole time. This weekend NBC is broadcasting swimming twice, both on saturday and sunday. This is a huge opportunity for the sport to showcase itself to a national audience.

First, on saturday the 21st at 5:00PM, NBC is broadcasting the 2013 Winter National Championships that took place from December 5th-7th in Knoxville at the University of Tennessee. This was a exciting meet with many great races and a few records broken as well.

Also showing this weekend is the Duel In The Pool meet. This is always one of the more exciting meets of the year. This meet is taking place in Scotland and is happening Friday the 20th and Saturday the 21st. It will be broadcasted on NBC on sunday at 4:00 PM. This meet is always exciting it puts a team of the United States top swimmers against a team of Europe's top swimmers. Much like the format of golf's Ryder Cup. The intensity is always high for this meet.

So tune in and enjoy this weekend, should be some great swimming!

Why Swimming Is So Great.

There are tons of reasons why swimming is so great and why I believe it's popularity can and will grow in the United States. I have talked about its marketability with its athletes and intense races,but like with most sports or really anything in general, the way to get people interested is to tell its stories. Swimming has some wonderful stories that if they got greater media exposure could really help out the sport a lot. I wanted to share a  really great swimming story.

Diana Nyad. In September of 2013 Diana became the first person to EVER swim from Cuba to Key West with no Shark Tank protector to assist her. Now just hearing that feat should be impressive enough but there's more... She did it on her 5th try!  That is just un-freakin believable. If I can't do something on the first try, I'll usually throw in the towel.. but this woman tries swimming from Havana to Key West in shark infested waters 5 times! Have to admire the determination and never giving up. Also, you might be picturing some mid 20's phenomenally in shape woman right? NOPE. Diana did this at the ripe age of 64. Crazy, right? Check out the routes of all of her attempts before. Insane.

http://www.diananyad.com

Hope I gave you all some inspiration for the day! Don't forget to check us on twitter and pinterest!

https://twitter.com/MainstreamSwim

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