The International Swimming League is trying to forge a new path for professional swimmers. But it is working with an authoritarian country.

by Matthew Hodler and Johanna Mellis The International Swimming League (ISL) begins its second season today at 10:00am ET and it will conduct its meets in a Budapest, Hungary “bubble” until November 20, 2020. In the face of the ongoing pandemic, severely restricted international travel, and the Summer Olympic Games’ postponement—the sport’s premier event for…

Review of Katharine Whitney Curtis: Mother of Synchronized Swimming

Whitney-Wei, Jordan. Katharine Whitney Curtis: Mother of Synchronized Swimming. North Carolina: McFarland & Company, 2020. Pp. 185. Notes, bibliography, and index. $39.95 paperback. Reviewed by Vicki Valosik In 1912, Katharine Curtis (nee Whitney) became the first woman to swim across Lake Mendota in Madison, Wisconsin. Under the headline “Madison has a youthful Annette Kellerman,” a…

Roundtable Reflections on the Rio Olympics, Part 2

This week we’re offering our thoughts and reflections on the recently completed Rio Olympics. Today is part two of our roundtable. It features a Q&A with four of our contributors — Cat Ariail, Josh Howard, Andrew McGregor, and Lindsay Parks Pieper — about their views on the Rio Olympics and its legacy as both scholars and sports fans. Feel…

Swimming as a Sporting Racial Project

One of the aspects that I love most about teaching at a university is the opportunity to engage with young people, to introduce new ideas and encourage them to (re)think their positions as they develop their own ways of understanding their world. But, approaching teaching in this way can make me feel like a dentist…