A long time ago, I found a proto-blog on a Japanese site called Yoruzu (which I can no longer find). I collected a number of shots from there of Japanese lifeguard competitions, and until Speedo Jack posted one of them recently, I’d never seen any of those photos anywhere else.

So here’s part of that extensive set, my favorite group, featuring the very fine, fine rear of one lifeguard, all in blue.

Wow. I’ve been looking for those small-profile, cool patterned Asian briefs, jams and leggings I’ve seen in pictures and at meets, and this weekend I stumbled on an old link I’d archived last year for Aqus, the Korean swimming online superstore, where — in addition to Arena Japan and Speedo Japan, which I knew of — I discovered swim gear manufacturers I’d never heard about: Mizuno, Rally, Nequin, Fiload, Tornado and others. Links to all of these are in the swim gear links at left. Here are some sample displays from Aqus. More on this later.

daniel bell_swimmer_01_lo, originally uploaded by jmfoto.

Champion swimmer Daniel Bell at West Wave swimming pool in Henderson. Auckland, 6Aug07. Captured by photographer James Madelin, copyright 2007.

daniel bell_swimmer_02_lo, originally uploaded by jmfoto.

Champion swimmer Daniel Bell at West Wave swimming pool in Henderson. Auckland, 6Aug07. Captured by photographer James Madelin, copyright 2007.

QUAC Ski-n-Swim 2008, originally uploaded by dav.d.

From dav.d’s wonderful portfolio of gay swimming club QUAC’s Ski-n-Swim 2008 event. Lots more images where this one came from, all of them well-composed images. I’ve added the QUAC website to the list of Athlete links at left, and dav.d’s Flickr portfolio has a link now under the photo resource links.

Aussie diver and Olympic Team Member Matthew Mitcham, 20, came out this month with stories in The Australian on May 12 and this weekend with an article in the Sydney Herald, and another one today in Britain’s Independent. This story was also covered this week by two blogs listed here: Adventures of a Gay Boy and Favorite Subjects.

In addition, I found a posting about it in OhLaLa, which also included some YouTube videos of Matt (who speaks Mandarin, by the way!). DNA Magazine ran a news brief on his coming out on Saturday.

Congratulations, Matt, to you and your partner. We wish you all the best at the Olympics this summer!

There are not a lot of large photos available on the internet of Matthew. Most of the large ones are on View Images (now known as JAM’D), which does not allow reposting. Here are photos we have found that we can share. I’ve included some YouTube videos of him diving as well.

Sometimes my archiving gets too complicated for its own good. Found this image in another folder today, right next to the folder that contained the rest of this series.

Add this to the set from May 13. I suppose that makes this posting an update of an update.