Lane lines from 2011 -  a trawl through the aquatic headlines of the past year: September and October

September 

1: The Olympic Games in 2012 will be broadcast in 3D for up to 10 hours a day in what will be a media first, organisers announce

1: Olympic and world champion Cesar Cielo clocks an impressive 21.97 to win the Brazilian 50m freestyle title at the Trofeu Jose Finkel Trophy to confirm his big-title defence at the first accredited-meet opportunity of Olympic season 

1: James Magnussen, the fastest 100m freestyler in history in suits without boots who bolted to swimming stardom with a dominant victory in the world-title race in Shanghai in July, says the market must wait; he tells Aussie media that he will distance himself from the demands of his new status to focus on London 2012 campaign

1: USA Swimming names Bob Bowman, Dave Salo and Tim Murphy to its Olympic coaching staff for London 2012; Bowman to work with head men's coach Gregg Troy, mentor to Ryan Lochte as Michael Phelps prepares for Olympic swansong

2: Swimming New Zealand chairman Murray Coulter resigns in the wake of persistent criticism and "personal attacks" following the Ineson Report, a critical Sport And Recreation New Zealand (Sparc) review into the federation's work released in June

3: Forty-eight swimmers will represent Team USA at the 2011 Pan American Games in Guadalajara, Mexico, from October 14-30, 2011, federation announces

5: Jan Cameron resigns as Swimming New Zealand's high-performance programme head. Her resignation follows hot on the heels of a decision by chairman of the country's federation Murray Coulter last week; plaudits for Cameron provided by CEO as well as national squad swimmers

6: Former 200m butterfly Commonwealth champion Moss Burmester urges Swimming New Zealand not to rush into short-term solutions following top-level resignations in the sport; as Jan Cameron leaves New Zealand and a role as performance head, she lambasted a Sparc-commissioned Ineson Report into the sport in June as being "fraught with … inaccuracies"

7: USA Swimming names the 109 swimmers for National Teams who have access to specific funding opportunities should they wish to claim them

7: Kenyan Jason Dunford holds off South African Chad Le Clos to successfully defend his All-Africa Games 100m butterfly crown in 52.13sec

7: In late 2012, France will host the European s/c championships at Chartres and French fans can expect to see its "dream team" in action - but national team plans for a nation on the rise in the race pool do not include the continental winter warmer in Szczecin, Poland, London 2012 the only target on the board for Gaul

8: Canada loses a great asset as Alex Baumann, the medley great of the 1980s, quits a top job in Canadian Olympic sport to take up a role as CEO for High Performance Sport New Zealand

11: The South African swimming team retain its dominant position as continental leader of the swim world with seven more gold medals on the final day of the All Africa Games in Maputo, Mozambique. In all, South Africans returned home with 73 medals, 20 more than their 2007 Games haul, including disability events.

12: Coach Roman Barnier, head of the Marseilles squad that includes the Gaulish firepower of Bousquet, Gilot, Lacourt and Meynard, among others, is to be found with his team on a military mission in Lorient as part of their London 2012 battle plan

13: Athletes who store their own blood and then inject it back into their bodies for an artificial boost ahead of events, face being caught by new anti-doping technology, says Prof David Cowan, director of the Drug Control Centre at King's College London

15: The passing of the world championships in Shanghai in late July did not halt the frenetic pace of racing in Japan: eight swift long-course meets placed 1,000-plus entries in the world rankings in the past six weeks, with Ryosuke Irie at the helm of it all

17: Winner of five gold medals at the 2011 FINA World Championships, two-time Olympian Ryan Lochte is named USA Swimming Athlete of the Year; Gregg Troy, Lochte's mentor, is coach of the year; the family of Fran Crippen, the open water swimmer who died in tragic circumstances in a 10km FINA race in Dubai in October 2010, is honored with the Athletes’ Appreciation Award; the USA Swimming Award goes to Crippen's coach Richard Shoulberg; while Crippen's sister Maddy collects the Glen S. Hummer Award

19: At a meeting in Lausanne at the weekend, WADA's top brass accepts a recommendation from medical experts that requires all member nations to have blood tests account for at least 10% of all anti-doping samples taken

20: Legend of distance swimming John Konrads had no intention of locking away his medals in a cupboard after police recovered them 24 years after they were stolen from his home - public now gets to see them in their new home at a Canberra museum

20: At the annual convention of USA Swimming delegates send a stark message to FINA over water temps in open water: 29.45C (85F) is the max temp allowed for US swimmers to take part. That would have meant no Americans would have taken part in world-titles action back in July

21: ASCA head John Leonard notes that new suit rules appear to have benefited both swim suit makers and the ability of athletes to attract financial support in 2010 and 2011

23: At Chinese nationals in Rizhao, 1500m world champion and record holder Sun Yang claims the 200m freestyle in 1:45.53, just half a second outside his Chinese record

26: The outstanding performance of the China nationals that end in Rizhao is Sun Yang's 3:40.29 Asian record in the 400m freestyle

26: NADA, the Austrian anti-doping agency, meets swimmer Dinko Jukic for eight hours but is unable to reach a conclusion over the burning question: to punish or not to punish, after the medley and 'fly man refused to submit for testing earlier in the year on grounds that he had concerns over hygiene standards

27: the Pellegrini-Lucas era is well and truly over as French coach reveals to media that the world 200m and 400m free champion refused to return calls and had not spoken to him since the last day of racing in Shanghai back in July

28: Michael Phelps says that 2011 was "OK ... but for me, OK isn't good enough. I know what I have to do. It's going to take a lot of hard work, and it's something I'm ready for". he is speaking six weeks into training that surpasses anything he has done since 2007 on the way to his Olympic swan song in 2012

29: The Olympic plans of Kenrick Monk are blown off course by a hit and run driver who knocked the Australian off his bike, breaking his elbow in two places, as he cycled to training in Brisbane … or at least that's what he tells the police

29: "After all these years, it's like a woman who tells you 'I want to stay with you but I also want a lover' … It's not easy" - French Olympic breaststroke medallist Hugues Duboscq describing a shift in his relationship with coach Christos Paparrodopoulos as he takes on new mentors for what is likely to be a final Olympic campaign

29: Pieter Van den Hoogenband, one of the all-time greats of world swimming and three-times Olympic champion for The Netherlands, issues a 10-point plan of action with which FINA could start to make the sport fit for the 21st Century

October

1. Kenrick Monk, the Australian swimmer who broke his elbow in an accident this week, faces serious challenge ahead after he changes his statement to the police to confirm that he was not involved in a hit-an-run incident but in fact fell off his skateboard

2. Swimming New Zealand's crisis deepens with the resignation of former international Helen Norfolk from a high-performance governance committee that was created to solve the sport's problems

4: Germany's Thomas Lurz is crowned overall champion of the FINA Marathon World Cup series

6: Liu Jing, a member of China's bronze-medal winning 4x200m freestyle quartet at the world championships in Shanghai in July, was issued an anti-doping warning by her federation after a positive test that dated back to April - the news is only reported by FINA six months later, well beyond world titles in Shanghai and the controversy over Brazilian positives

6: Olympic open water bronze medallist Cassandra Patten (GBR), the first woman to swim in Olympic medal races in both the marathon and the pool (800m freestyle), retires due to an ongoing shoulder injury

6: The Court of Arbitration for Sport drops a bomb in the fight against doping : it rules the 'Osaka' clause that bars from the Games anyone suspended for more than 6 months "invalid and unenforceable" in a case brought by USOC; IOC to seek tougher measures in WADA Code revision; SwimNews lists those who will now be eligible to race in Olympic waters once more

6: Brits seeks clarity and assurance from the IOC on the autonomy of national bodies to determine eligibility for Olympic selection in the wake of a CAS ruling that allowed cheats back into the Olympic fold

7: China's Liu Xiaoyu and Fan Rong rockets past best times to get the better of Russian Yuliya Efimova over 100m breaststroke on the opening day of action in the 2011 Arena World Cup in Dubai; Chad Le Clos (RSA) wins three; brace for Jason Dunford

8: Chad Le Clos continues to make hay at the first round of the 2011 Arena World Cup in Dubai, with three more victories taking his tally of gold medals to six 

9: Buck Dawson smiles down from the great swim Hall of Fame in the sky as ISHOF acquires Emil Rausch's 1904-06 Olympic medals, found in an attic in Berlin; plus one of Gaines's golds, with a moving twist; and the Josephson's synchro suits

11: IOC athletes' forum recommends lifetime bans for ‘deliberate and aggravated doping offences’ and tougher action on coaches and doctors involved in illegal practices

12: British swimming seeks clarification from FINA on the eligibility of Russian marathon Olympic champion Larisa Ilchenko to make a "comeback" in time for the defence of her crown in London 2012 after 15 months out of dope-test pool

12: FINA announces a new code - CLB - to be used on all Omega world cup results to get round problem of swimmers racing for foreign clubs and appearing on result sheets under false country codes

13: FINA's troubles with hot water at Shanghai world titles in July rumble on when Alex Meyer, US open water swimmer and the man who raised the red flag when Fran Crippen went missing, says: "It's clear that they didn't learn a thing, that they don't care. The coaches and swimmers should never be in a position to make a call on safety."

14: Federica Pellegrini, Olympic 200m freestyle champion, is put under pressure over an invitation to serve as flag bearer for Italy at the London 2012 Games; she says 'no', blazers say 'come on, we're not asking you to carry The Cross' [just make it more likely that you will lose the race you came to win]

15: Therese Alshammar (SWE), on 55.99 over 100m butterfly, and 23.80 in the 50 free for a brace at the FINA/Arena World Cup at home in Stockholm

16: In three times of asking, Chad Le Clos (RSA) is pipped to the post by a different competitor before he finally claims gold in his fourth final of the last day of action at the Arena World Cup in Stockholm

16: With a 47.84 Pan Am Games record over 100m free in Guadalajara, Mexico, Cesar Cielo (BRA) claws back a little of the gap opened up by James Magnussen (AUS) at world titles last July

17: Ian Thorpe to give only the slightest of glimpses of his freestyle capability when he returns to the race pool at the Singapore round of the World Cup November 4-5: 100m medley and 100m 'fly are what he enters; he will race 100 free in Tokyo a week later

17: At the 7th National City Games in Nanchang, Ye Shiwen, of Hangzhou, and Li Xuanxu, of Changsha, continue their domestic medley battle, Ye taking the 400m crown in a swift 4:33.66 to 4:34.33 for Li

18: Olympic great Michael Phelps may have had his fill of reasons to get as serious as it gets about swimming in time for his Games swansong in 2012 but at the Moscow round of the world cup Hidemasa Sano and Chad Le Clos write another line on his list of deficits over 200m 'fly

18: At the Chinese National City Games in Nanchang, Shao Yiwen clocks a swift 4:04.86 to take the 400m freestyle a finger tip away from her personal best 

19: Fu Yuanhui edges closer to cracking the minute mark over 100m backstroke as she claims victory in a personal best of 1:00.27 at Chinese National City Games in Nanchang

19: The endgame looms in London but for  at the world cup in Moscow Paul Biedermann (GER) edges out Olympic champion Michael Phelps (USA) over 200m free; Missy Franklin takes brace

20: World champion Ye Shiwen clocks 2:10.01 medley victory for third gold at 7th National City Games in Nanchang

20: At the Pan Am Games in Guadalajara, Cesar Cielo cracks out a 21.58 meet-record win in the 50m free; and Albert Subirats lifts Venezuela to third on medals with 100 'fly gold after a year of turmoil over a suspension that should never have been

21: Li Xiang, 18, leapfrogs 13 Chinese men all-time when he narrowly misses the national 200m breast record with a 2:12.34 at the 7th Chinese City Games today; and 16-year-old Liu  Zhaochen faster than Magnussen and Cielo were at 18 over 100 free just over 50sec

21: On the eve of the World Cup in Berlin Germany's head Olympics coach Dirk Lange is found defending his position in the media on rumours that he is to part company with the DSV

21: The USA B Team romped home to victory at the Pan Am Games in Guadalajara with two more gold medals adding up to 18 crowns

22: Canadian authorities take decisive action in the case of Cecil Russell, a coach banned for life but still central to work at the Dolphins Swim Club in Ontario; club time slashed; parents say human rights violated; media questions parents who send their children to be guided by a man who was banned for life from coaching in Canada in 1997 for his involvement in an international steroid trafficking ring; at the 1997 murder trial of one of his steroid trafficking associates, admitted to helping burn and dispose of the victim’s butchered body in a corn silo; and pleaded guilty to conspiracy to possession with intent to distribute ecstasy in 2003 and spent four years in prison in Spain and the US

22: Michael Phelps set a best time in a 400IM race - 4:01.49 at the Berlin round of the World Cup; Baltimore training partner Allison Schmitt goes 1:52.08 world textile best in 200 free ahead of Missy Franklin in a result that sparks the next headline:

22: Melissa Franklin (USA) cracks the world s/c record with a 2:00.03 victory over 200m backstroke at the Berlin round of the Arena World Cup today; first world mark by a woman since death of shiny suits; $10,000 bonus may never be claimed as teenager eyes NCAA rules governing amateur status

23: Shao Yiwen, of Hangzhou, wins win gold of her own at the 7th Chinese City Games in Nanchang, with an 8:25.21 effort over 800m free 

23: The first anniversary of the death of Fran Crippen, the first swimmer to lose his life on FINA's watch

23:  The headlines at the world cup in Berlin read "Misses Phelps" - and as if to confirm the accuracy of the compliment, Missy Franklin (USA) defeats Olympic champion Britta Steffen at home over 100m free then takes 100 back too

24: Wang Shun, a 17-year-old from Ningbo, improves from a lifetime best of 15:24.57 in April this year to a 14:56.92 victory over 1500m freestyle at the 7th Chinese City Games in Nanchang

24: The smile broadened on Bob Bowman's face as the question drew to a close: where are we in terms of Michael Phelps and his last Olympic campaign? The laughter followed the answer: "We are in the very early stages of regaining a respectable fitness level." Bob Bowman talks to SwimNews about The Last Push.