Take that, Marcos Diaz!

Hillbilly

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Jan 1, 2002
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BBC NEWS | Americas | Woman scores Atlantic swim first


A woman, Jennifer Figge, has just swum the Atlantic.

Diaz, whose only claim to fame is the product of his publicity agent, is touted as a great distance swimmer, getting millions of pesos in support for non-entity so=called feats....Yet he has never actually competed in any Olympic distance events...no publicity or support craft allowed there....

Like the time he swam around Manhattan a couple of time and nearly died, and then like three days later a much older guy did twice the swim in less time!!! All to far less fanfare generated by press and adulating sponsors...

Ho Hum...

HB
 

Lambada

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Mar 4, 2004
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Marcos Diaz is what.........34 years of age? Jennifer Figge is no spring chicken. At 56 years of age, she could be Marcos's mum. She apparently needed a diet of 8000 calories a day to keep the energy up. :surprised
 

Hillbilly

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What a shame!!! the original story also referred to a MAN that had made the swim...

As it stands, this is something that needs to be cleared up....no matter, I got my rant in...

But many thanks for clearing it up. I guess we are just in need os some "feel good" news, what with ARod, Miguel and Phelps all giving us downers.

But do remember that Phelps has had previous bouts with "banned" substances...according to his Mom...

HB
 

Lambada

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Ya know, when BushBaby & I were discussing this over supper a few nights ago he calculated her speed very approximately at 4 mph & I recalled how in my youth, training in a pool for a long distance (well sort of) sea swim I once did, we always used to estimate on 1 mph. 'Wow, haven't speeds improved since then' I said............lol Doubtless they have but not that much. :cheeky:

Don't know that I would have wanted to be on a catamaran for 2 months though bobbing across the Atlantic.
 

Mr_DR

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May 12, 2002
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What a shame!!! the original story also referred to a MAN that had made the swim...

As it stands, this is something that needs to be cleared up....no matter, I got my rant in...

But many thanks for clearing it up. I guess we are just in need os some "feel good" news, what with ARod, Miguel and Phelps all giving us downers.

But do remember that Phelps has had previous bouts with "banned" substances...according to his Mom...

HB

The AP originally reported that Figge swam from the Cape Verde Islands off the coast of Africa to Trinidad (2,100 miles) in 25 days while escorted by a boat. She was said to have rested every night and hopped back in the water in the morning.

Figge woke most days around 7 a.m., eating pasta and baked potatoes while she and the crew assessed the weather. Her longest stint in the water was about eight hours, and her shortest was 21 minutes.

There were problems with the story from the start. A few of the less-important ones included the fact that Cape Verde is at least 2,400 miles, not 2,100, from Trinidad. And the African islands are about 500 miles off the western coast of the continent, meaning Figge had a huge head start on her trip across the Atlantic. (It'd be like somebody saying they ran across America after starting in Cincinnati.)

Those are trivial though. The real issue stemmed from the fact that swimming 2,100 miles in 25 days is impossible. (Some newspapers picked up on this.) It's infinitely more impossible when somebody only spends 21 minutes swimming during one of those 25 days. Michael Phelps swimming his fastest would take about 20 days to cover that distance. And that's his fastest pace, sustained for three weeks, without ever stopping. Impossible.

Yet, somehow, the AP ran the story even though a few seconds of thought and a pocket calculator was enough to disprove it. They ran a correction yesterday that read, in part:

Figge swam only a fraction of the 2,100-mile journey. The rest of the time, she rested on her crew's westward-sailing catamaran. <b>Her spokesman [said] that her total swimming distance has not been calculated yet, but that due to ocean hazards including inclement weather, he estimates she swam about 250 miles.<b>

<b>Swimming 250 miles is nothing to scoff at; but it's not 2,100. To go back to the running-across-America analogy, this would be like driving cross country with a friend, and getting out of the car every ten miles to run one mile for the entire trip. That'd be an impressive feat, but nobody would ever confuse it with running across the United States. <b/>

In an interview yesterday with the AP, Figge avoids discussing the validity of her swim and instead says she "never intended to swim the Atlantic." That may be so, but she didn't do much to prevent most American news outlets from reporting that she did.

<b>If her Spokesman estimates that she swam about 250 miles I bet you that she really did a much smaller fraction of that.<b>
 

Golo100

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Jan 5, 2002
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Hi Hillbilly:
I want to refresh and give you credit for this old thread, but relevant today. Marcos Diaz and his money hungry promoters and vote-seeking politicians are at it again with this farse about Open Water events. The latest is this two continents open water swim joining Oceania to the Asian mainland to promote the Millenium objectives.
Few people realize that even at his peak, Marcos Diaz has never qualified for any recognized Olympic event, including our own Dominican national team. He has never qualified for the Pan Am Games or the Olympics in any swimming category. Diaz could not qualify today for any event in Dominican swimming competitions.
Worst yet, the international Open Water Championships, which are not recognized as Olympic events, but are separately organized as a world class event of its own, include 3 categories; the 5K, 10K and 25K(for kilometer races). In each of these categories, since the beginning, Marcos Diaz has never attempted to qualify for any of these events, because he could never meet the minimum standards, and qualifying times. These events are usually dominated by German, Russian and American swimmers. But even the swimmers for these Open Water Championships are second rate swimmers that could not qualify for the more demanding times in Olympic swim events like the 50, 100, 200 or relays. That is probably why they are not recognized in the Olympics as an event.
Marcos Diaz times in all events he has participated are below what WOMEN would achieve in the feminine category for Open Waters! The fact of the matter is that Marcos Diaz is so slow that by the time an Olympic swimmer goes from one side of the swimming pool to the other, Diaz would be going half way on to one side of the pool.
He almost died in a 25K event and never finished.
I am not trying to be an ?aguafiestas?, but someone has to bring this up. Someone has to tell CHIRIMOYA, one of Marcos Diaz' fans. There are plenty of good swimmers in DR that can swim circles around Marcos Diaz, yet this guy keeps getting press for his less than mediocre activities, while getting undeserved income and fame locally, while better Dominican swimmers starve. If anyone doubts what I say, take Marcos Diaz?s own web page, calculate his times for all his events, then go to any web page related to the World Open Waters Championships, look at all events, calculate the times for the 5,10 and 25K by others swimmers and compare to Marcos? own records.
 

Hillbilly

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Jan 1, 2002
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The $5 million pesos that were spent on publicity got the people out. Reality has nothing to do with what he does or does not do. I have heard that he as some "in" witht he First Lady --what a misnomer--and that gets him the money for these useless stunts.

I cannot remember when I have ever been so down on anyone involved in athletics of any sort. But this guy is a parasite and damages real Dominican athletes.

HB