Podcast · Sport

Swimmingpod

by Stanley Ulijaszek · English · Sport

Swimming in the outdoors - lakes and lidos, rivers and oceans, especially the people that swim in them. Music - 'Noe Noe', 'Aeronaut', ' Vienna Beat', and 'Watercool Quiet', from Blue Dot Sessions.

New episodes: Monthly
Typical length: 20 min
Latest: 9 Oct 2026
Language: English

Latest episode

9 Oct 2026 · 27 min

Swimming in Zurich, with Stanley Ulijaszek

Zurich is a happy place for me. I recall swimming in Lake Zurich, day after day, at the age of 19 years, just a fewkilometers south of Zurich itself. Enjoying the mild sting on getting into the water, cool, but not cold, easily accommodated. Enjoyed the majestic background of mountains still snow-laden, its ridges crisply defined by a still low morning summer sun. I thought then I could make a habit of this, swimming in a lake. Which I did, decades later. I never got to swim in Zurich itself then. That was something that started in my 60s, when I was invited to lecture, and to doresearch in…

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Earlier episodes 29 most recent

11 Sep 2026 · 9 min
Swimming in Custard, with Maddalena Borsato and Stanley Ulijaszek
Doing research is like swimming in custard. That’s the take-home from Maddalena Borsato in this podcast. She is a researcher in aesthetics at the University of Gastronomic Science, Pollenzo, Italy, and she combines pastry making withphilosophy in her website aristortele.it, where she philosophises with a spoon and creates thoughtful pastry recipes. In this podcast she describes the French dessert Iles Flottante, islands of soft meringue floating in a lake of custard,and the lone swimmer – me – making steady progress in research, or a life of swimming in custard. Its not swimming as we…
10 Aug 2026 · 27 min
Rebecca Olive, Researching Urban Swimming in Australia
Dr Rebecca Olive is Vice Chancellors Senior Research Fellow at RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia. Her research explores how every-day, recreational sport and leisure activities are experienced through cultural politics, ecological encounters, social media production and consumption, and much more. Her Fellowship at RMIT University involves research into recreational sport and leisure in urban bodies of water - oceans, estuaries, rivers, and outdoor pools – in short, urban swimming. She has three foci - public safety, climate resilience, and urban regeneration. She has produced a…
17 Jul 2026 · 20 min
Swimming at Murder Central with Stanley Ulijaszek, in Australia and the UK
Murder doesn’t often feature in swimming. In this podcast, two places are linked through this theme: Ballarat and St George’s Lake, in Australia, with Wallingford and the River Thames in Oxfordshire, in the UK. Both places have factual andfictional claims to being ‘murder central’ in their respective countries. Both have good swimming, and both have murder mysteries attached to their locale. In addition, Ballarat has seen several real-life, gruesome murders in recent years. It shouldn’t put you off swimming in its nearby lakes though.
16 Jul 2026 · 15 min
Lyn Wilks and Swimming in Ballarat, Australia
Swimming is in the DNA in Australia. Even in inland places, lakes, human-made and natural, form ideal swimming places. Human-made lakes include dammed waterways for reservoirs and goldmining works in mid- to late-nineteenth century Victoria, during the period that Australians moved toward self-determination as a country. I explore these lakes and the ideas that came with them, in and around Ballarat, Victoria, with resident Lyn Wilks.
7 Jul 2026 · 20 min
Sibylle van der Walt, Swimming in the Moselle River and Metz Ville d’Eau
Before the pandemic, some friends in Metz, a mid-sized city in France, near Strasbourg, were looking for somewhere to swim outdoors. The Moselle River flows through Metz, on its way to the North German wine country, before joining with the Rhine at Koblenz. This seemed the right place to make a new swimming place, in the Moselle River in and around Metz. Sibylle van der Walt was one of this group of friends. From this desire to swim in the local river, which was often contaminated in the ways that so many rivers in the Global North are, came a group, Metz Ville d’Eau, Metz City of Water.…
26 Jun 2026 · 32 min
Swimming, Water and Music, with Romy Martinez
Dr Romy Martinez is a Paraguayan singer, researcher, and ethnomusicologist, with two award-winning albums with the Purahéi Trio, including Songs by the Riverbanks , inspired by river landscapes and cultural exchange between Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil. She received the 2025 Latin GRAMMY Cultural Foundation Research Grant for Guaranía in Translation , promoting Paraguayan music in Europe. She is the first Paraguayan woman in ethnomusicology, and is a postdoctoral researcher in cultural diplomacy at Leiden University College, Netherlands. She is passionate about swimming. In this podcast we…
12 Jun 2026 · 16 min
Laura Reineke, Champion Endurance Swimmer, and Friends of the Thames
Laura Reineke is triple crown swimmer from Henley, UK, completing the Santa Catalina channel swim, the English Channel and the 20 Bridges swim of Manhattan Island. Locally, she is a Henley Mermaid, a group that swims for socialjustice, and founder of Friends of the Thames. She is Sue Ryder Woman of Achievement 2016. In this podcast I am with her in Henley, Oxfordshire, to discuss her swimming achievements, Henley Mermaids and her campaigning work for a clean River Thames.
20 May 2026 · 30 min
Simon Griffiths, of Outdoor Swimmer Magazine, and Swim Wild and Free
Simon Griffiths is the author of Swim Wild and Free: A PracticalGuide to Swimming Outdoors 365 Days a Year , and founder of Outdoor Swimmer magazine . He is a life-long swimmer, swims year-round in the Thames and regularly takes part in open water and pool races. His swimming adventures havetaken him around the world. He was part of the team that created the STA Open Water Swimming Coaching qualification. In this podcast we discuss his latestbook, as well as his magazine, how to become a better all-round swimmer, and swimming at Teddington, London.
23 Mar 2026 · 20 min
Toby Robinson, Olympian Marathon Swimmer, Paris, and Bringing Swimming back to the Thames in London
Toby Robinson is an international swimmer, representing England at the 2022 Commonwealth Games, and Great Britain at the Paris Olympic Games 2024. He is passionate about swimming, especially in open water. He is a staunch advocate and campaigner for clean open water in the UK, especially the River Thames in London. In September 2025, he was a key participant in a Thames relay swim from the source to London, highlighting sewage pollution in UK waterways. He is an ambassador for "Friends of the Thames", which promotes the restoration and protection of the river. In late 2025 he swam in the…
18 Mar 2026 · 18 min
Happy 5th Birthday, Swimmingpod. With Stanley Ulijaszek and Guests
Swimmingpod celebrates its 5th birthday, with guests Helen Edwards, Tom Kearney, Anette Frisch, Charlotte Sawyer, Tess Bird, Vera Prokopieva, and Carl Tysom. 65 episodes, covering styles and cultures of swimming in the outdoors and open water. Swimming heroes and everyday swimmers, politics and ecology of open watee. Swimming in health, disease and disability. Water and poetry, prose, music, visual arts and film. Swimming events, challenges, clubs, and groups. A lot of water has flowed under the bridge since the first episode in 2020.
3 Mar 2026 · 20 min
Sian Richardson – Events and Adventuring with the Bluetits
Sian Richardson is founder of the Bluetits Chill Swimmers, a social enterprise that has gone global. In this episode of Swimmingpod, Sian talks about how she got into winter swimming events and about Bluetits in Tallinn and at Lake Bled.
23 Feb 2026 · 17 min
Lord James Bethell and a Vision for a Swimmable Thames in London
James Bethell is a Lord of the British realm. A former Health Minister and member of the House of Lords. He is a passionate open water swimmer, whose passion has extended to bring open water swimming back to the River Thames in London. In this episode of Swimmingpod, Lord Bethell, James Bethell, talks about his open water passion, and a vision for a swimmable River Thames.
16 Dec 2025 · 18 min
Stanley Ulijaszek on Swimming and Summer Solstice Rituals
A warm June, 2025; a similarly warm June 2020, but in very different circumstances, both times greeting the solstice sun with a swim. Five years since the pandemic, Stanley Ulijaszekreflects in this podcast on summer solstice swimming and other rituals attached to this time of year at Oxford, both then, and now.
8 Dec 2025 · 30 min
Winter bathing at Umeakallbad, Sweden, with Dan Allen-Hörnfeldt and Elvira Lundgren
Daniel Allen-Hörnfeldt and Elvira Lundgren swim in Umea, Sweden. A place known for its magnificent wilderness, green and blue spaces, and swimming and winter swimmingscene. They run a very successful local winter bathing place called Umeakallbad. This is their story.
26 Nov 2025 · 32 min
Swimming and Cake in London, with Susanna Bowers and Stanley Ulijaszek
In this episode of Swimmingpod, Stanley Ulijaszek is with cake and pastry specialist Susanna Bowers, swimming at the London Fields and Brockwell Lidos , and eating cake and pastries at Pophams Bakery, Maya’s Bakehouse, and the lido cafe at Brockwell. In doing so, they explore the intimate connection between swimming and cake in London, a city of lidos and bakeries. They read from the Lido Guide, by Janet Wilkinson and Emma Pusill, and from Libby Page's novel The Lido, set in Brixton and Brockwell Lido. There is a literarytheme too – with Tolkein and Lord of the Rings, and Lewis Carroll and…
17 Nov 2025 · 22 min
Swimming and Cake in Oxford, with Susanna Bowers and Stanley Ulijaszek
Swimming and cake is a natural combination for many outdoor swimmers. In this episode of Swimmingpod, food expert Susanna Bowers joins Stanley Ulijaszek in Oxford to explore both. They swim at Port Meadow from the Dodo Tree; and later from the Tolkien Bench in the University Park, close by Parsons Pleasure and what was once Dames Delight. Cake is eaten before swimming, then at St Cross College after the first swim, and at the Randolph Hotel after the second swim. Water and food in the fiction works of University of Oxford Professors Charles Dodgson (better known as Lewis Carroll) and J.R.R.…
17 Oct 2025 · 31 min
Swimming and Leptospirosis - Stanley Ulijaszek
I never expected to suffer from leptospirosis, although I know that it is a risk. A comment I sometimes hear from passers-by while swimming in the river is “you know you can get Weil’s Disease, don’t you?” My internal response, never spoken, is “Yes, but…” it is so rare that it is hardly on my swimmer’s radar. In retrospect I am surprised by how it took me by surprise when I got it, even though I thought I knew what it looks like. The lived experience of a disease is always very different to what it says in the textbook, although the textbook is essential to knowing how to treat it. So,…
10 Oct 2025 · 27 min
Amelie Schlemmer and the Donaukanal Swimming Club, Vienna
Amelie Schlemmer swims in Vienna. She is co-founder of SVDK – Swimmverein Donaukanal – the Donaukanal (Danube Canal) Swimming Club. This was founded in 2020 by four students of the Social Design program at the University of Applied Arts, Vienna, as an artistic practice. It soon turned into an open, non-profit cultural association with the ambition of revitalizing urban swimming culture along the Danube Canal. With over 300 members, the association is active along the Danube Canal as it passes through Vienna, and collaborates with various initiatives and institutions within Vienna and…
27 Sep 2025 · 14 min
Swim For Your Life - Lake Bullen Merri, Australia
The volcanic Lake Bullen Merri is in Victoria, Australia, cloverleafed in shape. A little over two and a half kilometers across. Swimming here, Stanley Ulijaszek was struck by its deep history, and the history of the aboriginal Djargurd Wurrung peoples here, who were resettled in the late nineteenth century. There is a distressing swimming story here, involving the female leader of these people, Queen Fanny, the name given to her by the Europeans; real name Bareetch Chuurneen. There was a massacre at Lake Bullen Merri in 1839, and Bareetch Chuurneen got away, swimmingacross Lake Bullen Merri…
18 Sep 2025 · 22 min
Swimming stories and histories with Mike Lapworth and Hywel Davies
Mike Lapworth was the inspiration for my 65 swims at the age of 65 years. He had swum 50 swims at the age of 50 years. Hywel Davies I have swum with across the years, having met while swimming the length of the non-tidal River Thames (in stretches, not all in one go). We original met, Mikeand I, at the Thames at Port Meadow, Oxford, at a pre-pandemic Dodo (pre-Christmas) swim, where Hywel also swam. Mike told me of his 50 at 50, and Hywel persuaded me that 65 swims at 65 was a good idea. Mike has continued his swims, exploring new places, and we recorded this podcast in the small gem of café…
23 Aug 2025 · 19 min
Kara Meyer, + POOL and New York City
Kara Mayer’s mission is to make river swimming around NewYork City safe and free. With her development of + POOL, a water-filtering floating pool for safe recreation in urban waters, she has ignited a series of policy changes that will open up access to the rivers for all New Yorkers. Thisis being trialled in the Summer of 2025, and the implications of her work for outdoor urban bathing are huge, in terms of policy, technology and knowhow. Her moto – perseverance– is one for all water quality advocates. In this podcast we discuss how the idea of the world’s first floating filtration pool…
2 Aug 2025 · 19 min
Grace Wright-Arora, on Water (In)Justice and the River Avon
Why we swim can often be political, and swimmer Grace Wright-Arora has completed research on pollution, activism and alternative water knowledges among users of the River Avon, near Bristol. Central to this work is understanding why people swim in the Avon, despite knowing of the often high risks of exposure to pollution and even infection there. This podcast is about her swimming experiences, how Conham river bathers navigate uncertainty and risk of exposure, and the politics of Avon River management.
26 Jul 2025 · 37 min
Swimmable Cities Summit, Rotterdam, June 2025
Hot town, summer in the city, and a meeting like no other. For an urban swimmer, to have a bathing platform outside the conference venue, starting on Day 1, World Bathing Day, 22nd June, with a jump into the very clean waters of the Rijnhaven, Rotterdam, is a perfect start to two days of deliberation and information sharing. Around 200 people representing organisations from around the world assembled with the aim of promoting urban swimming, and through this, raising awareness about the potential for urban swimming to regenerate waterways, improve liveability and grow climate resilience.…
18 Jun 2025 · 26 min
Luke Belfield, and Marathon Swimming with Childhood Arthritis
Luke Belfield is a force, undertaking feats of running and swimming which would tax any mortal. As someone who developed arthritis in childhood, with some remissionand then resumption in early adult life, he could have accepted the ruling of the ancient Greek three sisters of fate. But he didn’t. Very successfully, he has been weaving his own destiny with the thread that he has been given, by, in his own words, considering his body as an instrument and not an ornament. In this podcast, we talk about his athletic journey, from running the Athens marathon and ironman, to marathon swimming. He…
30 May 2025 · 10 min
Shark Bait Swimming in Australia, with Tony Forbes and Col Ritchie
Tony Forbes and Col Ritchie are regulars at the annual Pierto Pub ocean swim in Lorne, Victoria. This can be a fierce race, when swimming can be a contact sport. Notwithstanding this, this fearsome duo amount nearly a century and a half of life experience between them, and swimming enough Pier toPubs leads to the honour of receiving a shark bait award, two or more if you live long enough and/or you don’t get taken by a shark. Tony and Col take it seriously enough to train regularly in their local pool. Which is where I jointhem, one crisp Australian spring morning.
12 May 2025 · 20 min
Sarah Quinn and Amenah McDonald, swimming and surfing at Ocean Grove, Victoria, Australia
Sarah Quinn taught me to say ‘You never regret a swim’ and Ihave been saying it now for decades. And I don’t and nor does she and nor does Amenah McDonald. Sarah and Amenah have a beautiful connection through the ocean atOcean Grove, Australia. Amenah plans her week around how the surf is going to be, while Sarah reads the water every morning on the way to dropping her kids off at school. Both live close to the ocean and are in every day if it letsthem – the water is their friend, but sometimes it can be treacherous. Amenah is Captain and Director of Lifesaving Operations at Ocean Grove…
20 Apr 2025 · 7 min
Stanley Ulijaszek and Swimming in Australia at Queenscliffe
Stanley Ulijaszek offers some reflections about swimming in Victoria in Australia on the coast at Queenscliffe. On a beautifulbeach, long and stretching towards a point to the left and another to theright, at Point Lonsdale. A swim with a Hopper-esque sailboat sailing in gentlebut business-like fashion, in front of the lighthouse that signals the pointwhere Australia lost a Prime Minister to the water and to the waves. RustCloud, Richard Serra, rusted iron slabs of sails sculpted by the wind. Strongerout there than here in gentle crawl parallel to the sandy shore. What three wordstell the…
6 Mar 2025 · 27 min
Swimming around Bristol, with Stanley Ulijaszek
There is a lot of good swimming to be had in the Bristolregion, with several vibrant and active outdoor swimming scenes in the region - in the city itself, but also in the nearby River Avon, in the River Brue, in the Avon estuary, and in the sea at sand point. If you can go a mile or ten out of Bristol there is a lot of choice - at Weston Super Mare there are several lido beaches to choose. River swimming at Bradford upon Avon (the river Avon upstream) is a scenic delight. People really care about their swimming here. Thesetwo accounts of swimming around Bristol are extracts from my book…
2 Feb 2025 · 24 min
Charlotte Sawyer and Aggie Nyagari, with their swim film ‘Rave on for the Avon’
Charlotte Sawyer is a documentary film maker and photographer who captures cinematic stories that cross cultures and boundaries. She has worked in conflict zones and places vulnerable to climate change, notably Iraq, Ethiopia and Nigeria. Aggie Nyagari is a Kenyan film and TV director, who brings the diversity of her life experiences into her work. Charlotte and Aggie both live, swim and work in Bristol. Together they have made a beautiful new film - Rave On for the Avon - capturing the Conham Bathing Group communities love for their river, and their fight for to gain Bathing Water Quality…

About Swimmingpod

Swimming in the outdoors - lakes and lidos, rivers and oceans, especially the people that swim in them. Music - 'Noe Noe', 'Aeronaut', ' Vienna Beat', and 'Watercool Quiet', from Blue Dot Sessions.

Swimmingpod is a English sport podcast from Stanley Ulijaszek. Melo plays each episode straight from the publisher's own feed — no ads added, no account needed — and remembers where you stopped, in this browser only.

Publisher: Stanley Ulijaszek
Language: English
Category: Sport
New episodes: Monthly
Typical length: 20 min
Latest episode: 9 Oct 2026
Feed: RSS — paste into any podcast app
Apple Podcasts: podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id1536473453
Rights: Stanley Ulijaszek

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