Dick Roth Won Olympic Gold While He Had Appendicitis (Cool Weird Awesome 1045)
It's National Swimming Pool Day, so here’s a story of a guy who had to get into the pool: Dick Roth, who won an Olympic gold medal while trying to fend off appendicitis.
Trischa Zorn, The Swimming Great With 55 Paralympic Medals (Cool Weird Awesome 600)
Paralympic athletes are in Tokyo to compete and maybe to win a gold medal, if they can. The benchmark for Paralympic gold, by the way: 55 medals by a single athlete, swimmer Trischa Zorn. Plus: today in 1936, a newspaper ran a short piece about inventor Isabella Gilbert and her dimple-making machine.
“Eric The Eel” Won An Olympic Heat With The Slowest Time In The Field (Cool Weird Awesome 587)
Sometimes the Olympic athletes who don’t win are the ones who make big impressions. That includes swimmer Eric Moussambani of Equatorial Guinea, who was a hit at the 2000 Summer Games despite finishing well behind the rest of the competitors in his event. Plus: Canadian high jumper Derek Drouin won a gold medal in 2016 when his doctors might have preferred that he rest at home!
Robot Lifeguards Could Keep People Safe In The Pool (Cool Weird Awesome 491)
A team of German developers may have just made the pool safer, by developing a water-based lifeguard robot that can rescue swimmers in distress. Plus: today in 1969, musical history, as "Happy Birthday To You" becomes the first song ever performed in outer space.
The Swimming Champion Who Became A Real-Life Superhero (Cool Weird Awesome 382)
44 years ago today, Shavarsh Karapetyan, a finswimming champion in Armenia did something extraordinary, saving at least 20 passengers who were trapped in a trolleybus that had gone into a lake. Has anybody done a biopic about this guy yet? Plus: meet Mieko Nagaoka, who in April 2015 became the first 100-year old swimmer to finish the 1,500 meter freestyle.
Tweens vs Potholes (Cool Weird Awesome 12)
A long cold winter is behind us - unfortunately potholes are underneath us.