Former cyclist Lance Armstrong is planning to return to competitive sport as a swimmer.
Lance Armstrong, 41, has entered the Masters South Central Zone Swimming Championships in Texas this weekend.
The sportsman is able to compete as US Masters Swimming events are not subject to USA or World Anti-Doping Agency codes.
Former cyclist Lance Armstrong is planning to return to competitive sport as a swimmer
Lance Armstrong was stripped of his seven Tour de France titles after deciding not to defend doping charges filed against him in August 2012.
He is scheduled to compete in freestyle races over 500 yards, 1,000 yards and 1,650 yards at the event held in his home city of Austin.
Lance Armstrong will compete with swimmers his own age or older. His first race, the 1,650 yards freestyle, takes place on Friday.
US Masters Swimming executive director Rob Butcher said he had not received any objections to Lance Armstrong competing in the event.
“The purpose of our organisation is to encourage adults to swim,” Rob Butcher told the Austin American-Statesman newspaper.
Lance Armstrong was charged by the US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) in June 2012 with using performance-enhancing drugs.
The cyclist filed a lawsuit against the organisation the following month, accusing it of “corrupt inducements” to other cyclists to testify against him.
However, Lance Armstrong then announced he would not fight the charges and was given a life ban by USADA.
In January, Lance Armstrong confessed to taking performance-enhancing drugs during all seven of his Tour de France wins between 1999 and 2005 in a television interview with Oprah Winfrey.
French Phillipe Croizon, who lost all his limbs in an electrocution accident, has completed a swim to link five continents.
Using tailor-made flippers, Philippe Croizon, 44, finished his quest by crossing between the US island of Little Diomede and Great Diomede in Russia, joining Asia and the Americas.
He has swum three other straits since May.
Reaching shore, Phillipe Croizon said the icy waters had been a challenge.
Phillipe Croizon, who lost all his limbs in an electrocution accident, has completed a swim to link five continents
“This was the hardest swim of my life, with a water temperature of four degrees Celsius (39 degrees Fahrenheit) and strong currents,” he told AFP news agency.
“We made it.”
He swam the 4.3 km (2.7 miles) stretch in the Bering Strait in one hour and 20 minutes, accompanied by friend and long-distance swimmer Arnaud Chassery.
Phillipe Croizon said he hoped to be an encouragement to other disabled people.
“I tell them: <<Everything is possible, everything can be done when you have the will to go beyond yourself>>. We’re all equal, disabled and non-disabled people on all continents,” he said, according to AFP.
In past months Phillipe Croizon has swum between Papua New Guinea and Indonesia to link Oceania with Asia, across the shark-infested Red Sea to link Africa to Asia, and across the Strait of Gibraltar between Europe and Africa.
Phllipe Croizon had the amputations after an accident on a roof in 1994, when a high-voltage power cable discharged through a metal ladder he was standing on.
[youtube aoJoELr0R6o]
A number of Olympic swimmers are walking out to the pool wearing headphones – and keeping them on right up until the last seconds before they climb onto the blocks.
Athletes are said to favor them because they allow them to stay focused on the race in the moments before they take them off to swim and not be distracted by the crowd.
But the practice has divided opinion, with a number of people criticizing the swimmers for ignoring the fans, as the headphones block out their cheers.
Sun Yang, who went on to win a gold medal, was one of several seen wearing the “Beats by Dr. Dre” headphones at the swimming finals on Saturday night.
They are designed to block out all background noise.
A number of Olympic swimmers at London Games are walking out to the pool wearing headphones
US swimming star Michael Phelps – who has 14 Olympic gold medals – keeps his headphones firmly in place until the last minute as he stays focused.
But fans expressed dismay on Twitter, with Ella McSweeney writing: “If I was a fan who travelled to support a swimmer who then appeared with headphones on, I’d feel like being a bit quiet.”
Another wrote: “Why are these swimmers coming out wearing headphones? Take them off and soak up the atmosphere you idiots.”
But they did find some support. Spectator Mari Fotherby told the Independent: “Why shouldn’t they wear them? They train hard 364 days of the year. If they want to use music to stay calm as they get ready to race then they should.”
As well as disappointing the fans, the swimmers who wore the headphones are likely to have left Samsung, the official technology sponsor of the games, somewhat miffed.
Beats by Dre headphones are owned by one of their fiercest corporate rivals, HTC.
Last night a LOCOG spokesperson confirmed that Beats by Dre were not an official sponsor.
“It must be that the athletes just like them,” a spokesman said.
Nobody at the company Beats by Dre was available to comment on whether the headphones had been given to athletes for free.
