Swimmers

SAO PAULO - Thousands of flesh-eating piranhas have infested a river beach popular with tourists in western Brazil and have bitten at least 15 unwary swimmers, authorities said yesterday. Officials in the city of Caceres in Mato Grosso state said this is the first time they have had a problem with piranhas at the Daveron beach on the Paraguay River, where the aggressive fish began schooling about two weeks ago. "People have got to be very careful. If they're bitten, they've got to get out of the water rapidly and not allow the blood to spread," firefighter Raul Castro de Oliveira told Globo TV's G1 website.

BEATING the heat while performing for a cause, swimmers take to the pool. In an effort to raise money for the American Cancer Society, Jim Howat, coach of the Huntingdon Valley Country Club and his wife B.J., coach at Hideaway Swim Club, challenged each other's swim teams. The Hideaway team swam on July 20; last week, the Huntingdon Valley team members hit the pool.

Competing for the coveted silver bowl full of cherries, 500 swimmers ages 5 to 18 participated last weekend in Cherry Hill's club championships, known as the Cherry Bowl. The Old Orchard Swim Club, which won the bowl 13 straight years in the late 1970s and '80s, tasted sweet victory again. Thirteen teams took part July 31 in the 33d annual event.

No fancy strokes or daredevil dives - just plenty of splashing and bubble- blowing and fun in the pool. That's what the Ambler YMCA's Waterbabies program is all about. For 20 years, parents have been taking their tots to the Y to learn early, from certified instructors, that swimming pools are fun. Everyone into the pool - even Moms and Dads.

Attention swimmers: Sleep deprivation is finally coming to an end. The high school portion of the swimming season will conclude Sunday with the NJSIAA state championships at Rutgers University. All those mornings of awakening well before sunrise for practice for their U.S. Swimming teams, all the afternoons spent waiting for practice to begin because of staggered times caused by the area's lack of pools, the countless miles in the pool . . . that soon will be no more. Sure, some USS swimmers will begin their taper for Junior Nationals after Monday, so there still is some work to do, but many of the swimmers will wind down - at least a little - after this weekend.

Area swimmers will be making waves Saturday and Sunday at Cherry Hill's Fox Hollow Swim Club, which is hosting the 54th annual Burt German Tri-County Swimming Championships. The pool will be overflowing with young competitors from 36 summer swim clubs that make up the Tri-County Swimming Pool Association in Burlington, Camden and Gloucester counties. Boys and girls ranging from eight and under to 15-18 are competing in 17 events, beginning with the 100-meter individual medley and ending with the 200 freestyle relay.

The 1987-88 boys' swimming season should be an exciting and competitive one in Delaware County high schools. A host of talented swimmers will be competing on both the team and individual levels and a number have a chance, at the end of their league seasons, to participate in district and state competitions. In the Catholic League, Cardinal O'Hara may have a tough time improving on last year's record of 10-2, 8-1 in the league. O'Hara has lost eight swimmers to graduation - six of them members of the all-Catholic team.

Former Cardinal O'Hara swimmer Mark Bernardino has been coaching the University of Virginia men's and women's teams for 13 years now, but it's only in the last few years that he has mined the Philadelphia area for some of his best swimmers. One of those swimmers is co-captain Mike Rayer of Broomall, who attended Germantown Academy. "Captains are chosen by the swimmers, and the team chose him because he is an outstanding athlete and leader," Bernardino said. "He puts in as much practice time as anyone on the team, he has great work ethics, and he's a first-class young man. " A junior, Rayer was named to the all-Atlantic Coast Conference team last season, when the Cavaliers ranked 17th in the final coaches' poll.

The co-captain of the Kenyon College women's swim team was killed when the school van slid on an icy road into a highway guardrail and rolled several times. Ten other swimmers were injured. The swimmers of the championship team were returning from a meet against North Carolina. They were about 30 miles from their school in Gambier, Ohio, when the accident happened about 6:40 p.m. Thursday. Molly Hatcher, a 21-year-old senior from Evanston, Ill., was tossed from the van and died in the crash on U.S. 36 about 65 miles east of Columbus, the State Highway Patrol said yesterday.

The Downingtown boys' swim team extended its winning streak to four with a close 89-82 victory last Monday over a tough Conestoga squad. The Whippets (4-1) held an 81-76 lead with one event, the 400-yard freestyle relay, remaining. Coach Steve Curtis said he had a feeling that the meet would come down to the last relay, so he put his two strongest all-round swimmers, Steve and Doug Petrie, on that team. "Usually, I use those two in the medley relay instead of the freestyle relay, but I had a hunch we were going to need them in the free relay at the end," Curtis said.

ALEXANDER DALE OEN, a world-champion swimmer who was one of Norway's top medal hopes for the London Olympics, died during a training camp in Flagstaff, Ariz. He was 26. The president of the Norwegian swimming federation, Per Rune Eknes, told the Associated Press in a phone interview that Dale Oen died after suffering a cardiac arrest. In a statement, the federation said the 100-meter breaststroke world champion was found collapsed on the floor of his bathroom late Monday.

World champion swimmer Alexander Dale Oen of Norway died suddenly from cardiac arrest during a pre-Olympic training camp in Flagstaff, Ariz. He was 26. Dale Oen, one of Norway's biggest medal hopes for the London Olympics, was found collapsed on his bathroom floor late Monday and was pronounced dead shortly afterward at Flagstaff Medical Center, Norwegian swimming federation President Per Rune Eknes confirmed on Tuesday. He said it was still unclear what led to the cardiac arrest.

The long-distance runner is famously lonely. The long-distance swimmer is not only lonely but often afraid. Sometimes it's just the swimmer and a vast ocean. No competitors in sight. No comforting landmarks or safe harbors. No noise. Nothing but the waves to disrupt the solace, the fear. When Fran Crippen introduced him to open-water swimming a few years ago, Arthur Frayler "freaked out. " As they swam alone in the Atlantic Ocean off Florida, the youngster wouldn't let his mentor get more than a few feet away.

John Joseph Macionis, 95, formerly of Elkins Park, a retired sales executive and swimmer who won a silver medal at the Berlin Olympics when he was 20 and went on to win medals in his 60s, died Thursday, Feb. 16, at the Colonnades, a retirement community in Charlottesville, Va. Mr. Macionis graduated in 1933 from Central High School, where he captained the swim team and set a 220-yard freestyle scholastic record. As a youth, he also swam for the Germantown YMCA and for the Big Brothers Swimming Association at AAU events.

The Cherokee girls' swim team qualified for a sectional championship meet for the first time in nearly three decades, as Isabel Obregon keyed the second-seeded Chiefs' 97-73 win over No. 3 seed West Windsor-Plainsboro South on Tuesday in a Central Jersey Public A semifinal. Obregon won the 200-yard freestyle in 1 minute, 57.67 seconds and the 100 backstroke in 1:01.39, led off Cherokee's winning effort in the 200 freestyle relay (1:42.53), and swam the anchor leg on the Chiefs' victorious 400 freestyle relay squad (3:45.

Will Manion won two individual events and led off the winning effort in the 200-yard freestyle relay, highlighting top-seeded Haddonfield's 113-57 victory over No. 8 seed Woodstown in Friday's South Jersey Public B swimming quarterfinal at GCIT. Manion took first in the 200 free in 1 minute, 47.81 seconds, and won the 100 free in :47.84. In a quarterfinal at Burlington County College, second-seeded Moorestown swept all 11 events to dismiss No. 7 seed Cumberland, 132.5-37.5. J.D. Schurer (200 freestyle, 100 breaststroke)

Shane Ryan committed to Penn State on a swim scholarship around late October, in a simpler time, back when the university was viewed merely as the bedrock of an otherwise sleepy town in the heart of the commonwealth. Some things, of course, have changed dramatically. Ryan's resolve hasn't. The Haverford High senior - all 6-foot-6 of him - has stood firm in his commitment to the Nittany Lions, signing a letter of intent a few weeks ago. "Once that went down," Ryan said of the Jerry Sandusky child sexual abuse scandal, "I was, like, it has nothing to do with the swim team.

Shane Ryan committed to Penn State on a swim scholarship around late October, in a simpler time, back when the university was viewed merely as the bedrock of an otherwise sleepy town in the heart of the Commonwealth. Some things, of course, have changed dramatically. Ryan's resolve hasn't. The Haverford High senior - all 6-foot-6 of him - has stood firm in his commitment to the Nittany Lions, signing a letter of intent a few weeks ago. "Once that went down," Ryan said of the Jerry Sandusky child sexual abuse scandal, "I was, like, it has nothing to do with the swim team.

SAO PAULO - Thousands of flesh-eating piranhas have infested a river beach popular with tourists in western Brazil and have bitten at least 15 unwary swimmers, authorities said yesterday. Officials in the city of Caceres in Mato Grosso state said this is the first time they have had a problem with piranhas at the Daveron beach on the Paraguay River, where the aggressive fish began schooling about two weeks ago. "People have got to be very careful. If they're bitten, they've got to get out of the water rapidly and not allow the blood to spread," firefighter Raul Castro de Oliveira told Globo TV's G1 website.