Monday's Swim Report - Mystery Solved: How Sonic The Hedgehog Can Swim

Lane 1 - Daily Mail posts "Taking a dip: Prince Albert of Monaco swims in Mediterranean (but that's nothing compared to Siberian swimmer who wears only Speedos as temperatures plummet to -20C)  His wife is a former Olympic swimmer who competed at the Sydney Games.  And it appears Charlene, Princess of Monaco's, enthusiasm for the sport has rubbed off on her husband Prince Albert."

Lane 2 - Herald Sun posts "Swim star Stephanie Rice forced to delay return to training.  TRIPLE Olympic champion Stephanie Rice has had a setback in her recovery from shoulder surgery with an infection forcing a delay in her return to training.  Rice's doctor ordered her to avoid training on Monday after she developed the infection following last week's arthroscopic surgery to repair a torn tendon in her right shoulder."

Lane 3 - Swimming Santa  via youtube

Lane 4 - Gay Games Blog has "Congratulations to Team Auckland Masters Swimmers on their 20th anniversary! ongratulations to our friends from IGLA member club Team Auckland Masters Swimming, whose history is recounted in this story from GayExpress.co.nz:  Team Auckland Masters Swimmers – one of New Zealand’s longest-running GLBT community groups – is turning the big 2 – 0 in January; that’s 20 years of swimming cozzies, chocolate fish and overseas trips!"

Lane 5 - NZ Herald posts "Swimming performance hub set for capital.  Swimming New Zealand will establish its first regional high performance hub in Wellington next month.  The Regional High Performance Unit would complement the National High Performance Centre at the Millennium Institute, Swimming New Zealand said today."

Lane 6 - Siliconera answers the question of the century "How Sonic Can Swim In The Mario And Sonic Olympic Games.  When Nintendo and Sega began work on Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games​, both were tasked with supervising the depiction of their own characters in the game. Nintendo would keep an eye on how the game depicted Mario and crew, and Sega kept an eye on Sonic and friends. This naturally led to some differences in opinion, regarding what was and wasn’t acceptable within the game.  One of these topics was with regard to swimming. Not only did Sega ponder the subject of whether or not characters like Peach and Mario should have to wear swimwear, Nintendo themselves rejected the early costume designs for Peach and Daisy. Meanwhile, the supervisor in charge of the Sonic brand at Sega wouldn’t budge from the fact that Sonic isn’t supposed to be able to swim at all, let alone take part in an Olympic swimming event."

Lane 7 - USA Today "Brendan Hansen is beating his rivals, feeling less pressure.  Brendan Hansen left competitive swimming so he could do all the things he'd put on the backburner, like getting married.  His wife, Martha, a sixth-grade math teacher, quickly put two and two together when she saw the two-time Olympic breaststroker in the pool without any real purpose."

Lane 8 - The Huddesrsfield Daily posts "Rebecca Adlington says Huddersfield Sports Centre has vital role to play in unearthing Britain’s next international talent."