Since I posted the Fact Check site, I've written to so many people--writers, editors, DN sponsors, etc.--that I've lost track. I've heard back from so few--maybe four or five--that I've come to expect no response. I am surprised and elated when someone does get back to me. I think it best to keep things as civil as possible. The tide will eventually turn against DN, and I don't want to have alienated anyone unnecessarily in the meantime.
Just updated the site a bit. If you have a chance to check it out, please let me know what you think. I'm a bit concerned about it appearing too harsh and/or bitter.
Just had a conversation with a coworker who attended the Simmons Women's Leadership Conference in Boston last week... Diana Nyad was a featured speaker. She thought I'd be soooooo excited to hear!!
I sent her the site. Sigh.
( @danslos the site is a great resource to have and I was glad to have it to refer to, and thanks for compiling it- I don't think it comes off too bitter, I think it's just that the statements and facts are so clearly in opposition that it feels that way)
Twice in recent weeks I've pointed people in the direction of your site, Dan. In the cases of both of these ladies, they were enthusing madly about having just read Find a Way. (barf!) When I told one lady that Nyad was a fraud, she said I'd ruined the book for her. I suggested that she read the website and she said she didn't have time for that. sigh We can but try.
I haven't put a toe in the water for years. At the moment, though, I seem to be swimming the entire length of denial. See the comments to the blog post, "Never Give Up!"
And, after learning that Nyad will appear with the mayor of Beverly Hills next week, I sent said mayor my standard Diana-Nyad-is-the-Lance-Armstrong-of-Marathon-Swimming message. I received the following reply:
Just another politician who can't read?? Can you give us the contact infor for "Da Mayor"? Perhaps if more of us sent him reading material about DN, the LA of of Marathon swimming he might pay attention??
danslos said:
I haven't put a toe in the water for years. At the moment, though, I seem to be swimming the entire length of denial. See the comments to the blog post, "Never Give Up!"
Tried to add a comment. Perhaps he monitors them before publishing?
And, after learning that Nyad will appear with the mayor of Beverly Hills next week, I sent said mayor my standard Diana-Nyad-is-the-Lance-Armstrong-of-Marathon-Swimming message. I received the following reply:
She's walking with us this coming Monday!
Yes! I do know about her incredible journey!
You are welcome to join us next Monday!
--Lili Bosse, Mayor. City of Beverly Hills
Tried to comment on that little article, suggesting to the mayor to ask DN about her Mexico City Olympic trials swim and her female-first around Manhattan. Again, maybe the mayor's webmaster monitors comments first, because nothing showed up after I confirmed I'm human.
We're all just carbon, water, starlight, oxygen and dreams
Imagine that.. she's making as much money in one "appearance " as some people make in a year. Maybe I'll set up a "walk with Suzie" or better yet "Walk with Sarah Thomas" and retire!
If I searched Johnson & Johnson (founding sponsors) or https://www.jnj.com/ for DN or Everwalk and you'll get: There are no results for the search term "Everwalk"
Google for Johnson & Johnson + EverWalk only gives EverWalk website as result.
Johnson and Johnson and every other major corporation that sponsors events does not list those events or programs on its website, nor do they post about them on social media. If they were not sponsoring it, the GMA appearance would have been shut down so fast your head would have spun around. I live down the street from their international HQ and know some of their marketing folks.
24-Hour Fitness is a chain of gyms in the U.S. It's a real thing. Maybe the website is down or the address is wrong.
I get the desire to talk crap about Nyad, but creating your own fantasies in your head isn't helping the overall goal. In fact, this thread (outside of the fact check website) makes me very uncomfortable with the tone because it's getting to (and may have even already crossed) the line of affecting your credibility. Google sleuthing doesn't explain everything, y'know.
I get the desire to talk crap about Nyad, but creating your own fantasies in your head isn't helping the overall goal. In fact, this thread (outside of the fact check website) makes me very uncomfortable with the tone because it's getting to (and may have even already crossed) the line of affecting your credibility. Google sleuthing doesn't explain everything, y'know.
DanSimonelli said: @rosemarymint
Would you elaborate on this?
Her point was well-articulated - not sure what needs to be elaborated.
There's a fine art to minority influence (i.e., changing widespread yet false beliefs), and it's incredibly easy to come off as a shrill, paranoid crank - at which point everyone just tunes you out.
The idea that Everwalk is fabricating major sponsors... is arguably in that territory. It just doesn't help.
Observe what @danslos has done - and continues to do. Offer facts and evidence when the opportunity presents itself - patiently, calmly, rationally. This is the model.
DanSimonelli said:
"creating your own fantasies in your head isn't helping the overall goal"
Wondering what she was referring to specifically...?
I was specifically responding to the conjectures that Niek made regarding sponsors for EverWalk, specifically this:
"Make objections to her EverWalk sponsors.
You'll find -not working links - at the right bottom.
Or the 'sponsors' have nothing about EverWalk or DN
.
Looks like they're rats scrambling for a way off a sinking ship."
We are a community of people who value rational data and evidence regarding our sport. Throwing this level of conjecture into the mix, on a thread about someone that is extremely polarizing, does not help us.
C -- I suspect that the sponsors have no control over the quality and maintenance of the EverWalk website. Thus, broken links, links that never worked in the first place, etc.
While out walking my dog yday morning, I ran in to a neighbor of mine. He asked how the weekend went and how my swim went, so I told him. A minute or so into the conversation he asked
Did you ever watch that TedTalk from that women who swam from...
I stopped him right there, directed him to your website, @danslos, and told him if he wanted to talk more in-depth about it, he'd have to pull his fire pit and a bunch of beers out into the yard.
We're all just carbon, water, starlight, oxygen and dreams
@IronMike, you can tell him that I'd be glad to chat.
In the meantime, I've had a bit of extra time lately for Nyad-related research. This morning, I stumbled across a Nyad/Manhattan Facebook post that I hadn't seen before:
...Bruce and I were the same age when he became a worldwide hero back at the Olympic Games in 1976 and I made much more modest inroads as the first woman to swim around Manhattan Island.
To reiterate: Nyad knew in 1978 that she wasn't first. After unknowing it, she re-knew it in 2011, then quickly un-knew it again. Kind of breathtaking.
The contact page lists two names. I wrote the following, but would very much appreciate suggestions for what I might do to improve my response. I'd like to create a template that's forceful yet brief and not too mean-spirited....
Dear Danielle & Omar,
I see that Diana Nyad just won--for FIND A WAY--the Cross Sports book award for International Autobiography of the Year.
Did you know that Nyad devotes an entire chapter of FIND A WAY to her being "...the first woman to swim around Manhattan..."? In fact, she was the 7th, which she has known for 40 years.
Please see http://nyadfactcheck.com/ for more of Nyad's factual inaccuracies, exaggerations and deceit.
Respectfully,
-Daniel Slosberg
Los Angeles, CA, USA
(310) 880-5828
Busquemos la gran alegría del haber hecho.
(Let us seek the great joy of having done.)
--Juan Ramon Jimenez
I added a short final paragraph as the letter lacks an explanation why you're writing:
'Her inconsistent claims are well known within the global marathon swimming community who are engaged in trying to highlight and correct these perceptions in fear that they become accepted as fact.'
Does anybody know if anyone has attempted Cuba-to-Florida other than Walter Poenisch, Susie Maroney, Penny Palfrey, Chloe McCardel, and DN? I need to respond to another DN acolyte but must get my facts straight first.
I will post more about this shortly, once I finish the response. Nyad appears to be either upping her game fiction-wise, or she's suffering from dementia.
danslos said:
Does anybody know if anyone has attempted Cuba-to-Florida other than Walter Poenisch, Susie Maroney, Penny Palfrey, Chloe McCardel, and DN?
I asked about Cuba-to-Florida swimmers because I just came across an interview that Nyad did with John Brenkus on his podcast Brink of Midnight. In that interview, Nyad makes a number of astounding assertions and non-assertions:
She never questions the host's statement that there is "only one person in the history of humanity" ever to have swum from Cuba to Florida.
"All the great swimmers of the ocean have tried [to swim from Cuba to Florida]--male, female, young, strong, fast..." (~28:05)
"...100 miles, nobody had done half that in the open sea before." (~33:10)
"I respect the people who tried before..." (~33:40)
...and possibly most astounding, she kept repeating variations of "it's not about ego" for her.
Using US politics as a guide (no matter which side you are on) , the best bet is to hound her sponsors until they see the light.....sponsored have pulled out of agreements so as to not be associated with the language or actions of individuals for fear their products/services will be tainted. Hell, maybe we should continually tweet the shit out of it as well.
Has anyone ever confronted her at one of her talks?
Kinda get the feeling that now she's into her rythmn she isn't going to change her story. Only when confronted in front of an audience with a journalist present to report it will she have to address the inconsistencies she's created. Once a journalist has documented it, it can be referred to and used to greater effect.
Similar to Lance Armstrong, once you state something a thousand times people don't question anymore. DN needs her Oprah Winfrey moment.
Marathon swimming has to stand above the recent trend to create alternative facts.
mysterybob said:
Using US politics as a guide (no matter which side you are on) , the best bet is to hound her sponsors until they see the light.....sponsored have pulled out of agreements so as to not be associated with the language or actions of individuals for fear their products/services will be tainted. Hell, maybe we should continually tweet the shit out of it as well.
I believe many of us here wrote to Finis.
We're all just carbon, water, starlight, oxygen and dreams
My social media consultant (a.k.a. my youngest son) reminded me that I could grab clips from the John Brenkus interview. Though this meant I had to listen again, I gritted my teeth and forged ahead. Good thing, because I missed a few doozies on the first pass, most notably this riff on jellyfish.
I'm not sure of the exact number of box jelly species, but wikipedia says that "[at] least 36 species...were known as of 2007." And it would seem that a sting is only likely to kill you instantaneously if you're a shrimp or other small sea creature.
She has a similar talking style to Donald Trump: sufficiently loud to create authority and fast to deny an interruption, with a a tone of insistence that combined, ensures she's not challenged. She's also well practised in what she's saying, she's not ad-libbing.
Look into my eyes.... you are feeling sleepy.... ;-)
She's also well practised in what she's saying, she's not ad-libbing.
@WarmWater, you're more right about that than you may know. If you go to 13:20 on this video, you'll hear a familiar story. If you want some REAL amusement though, check out 10:30 and 11:50.
I just stumbled on this and haven't watched the whole thing. I'm sure there's more interesting stuff.
@mysterybob said: the best bet is to hound her sponsors until they see the light.....sponsored have pulled out of agreements so as to not be associated with the language or actions of individuals for fear their products/services will be tainted. Hell, maybe we should continually tweet the shit out of it as well.
Who are her sponsors? FINIS has been mentioned elsewhere. A brief look at her website didn't turn up much else.
Comments
No worries, Niek. You did just fine. All the best. RLM
Since I posted the Fact Check site, I've written to so many people--writers, editors, DN sponsors, etc.--that I've lost track. I've heard back from so few--maybe four or five--that I've come to expect no response. I am surprised and elated when someone does get back to me. I think it best to keep things as civil as possible. The tide will eventually turn against DN, and I don't want to have alienated anyone unnecessarily in the meantime.
Just updated the site a bit. If you have a chance to check it out, please let me know what you think. I'm a bit concerned about it appearing too harsh and/or bitter.
The truth can be harsh, but never bitter.
Looks good still. This is the site I send people to when they ask me about the fraud.
We're all just carbon, water, starlight, oxygen and dreams
Just had a conversation with a coworker who attended the Simmons Women's Leadership Conference in Boston last week... Diana Nyad was a featured speaker. She thought I'd be soooooo excited to hear!!
I sent her the site. Sigh.
( @danslos the site is a great resource to have and I was glad to have it to refer to, and thanks for compiling it- I don't think it comes off too bitter, I think it's just that the statements and facts are so clearly in opposition that it feels that way)
I'm thinking to send Simmons a note as well...
Twice in recent weeks I've pointed people in the direction of your site, Dan. In the cases of both of these ladies, they were enthusing madly about having just read Find a Way. (barf!) When I told one lady that Nyad was a fraud, she said I'd ruined the book for her. I suggested that she read the website and she said she didn't have time for that. sigh We can but try.
Thanks for all the support.
And don't give up. It took more than 12 years from the first Armstrong allegations before he finally told the truth.
I'm going to add your site to my blogroll, @danslos. Hopefully that'll get you some more traffic.
We're all just carbon, water, starlight, oxygen and dreams
I haven't put a toe in the water for years. At the moment, though, I seem to be swimming the entire length of denial. See the comments to the blog post, "Never Give Up!"
And, after learning that Nyad will appear with the mayor of Beverly Hills next week, I sent said mayor my standard Diana-Nyad-is-the-Lance-Armstrong-of-Marathon-Swimming message. I received the following reply:
Just another politician who can't read?? Can you give us the contact infor for "Da Mayor"? Perhaps if more of us sent him reading material about DN, the LA of of Marathon swimming he might pay attention??
Sure! Her email is lbosse@beverlyhills.org. The city council's is MayorandCityCouncil@beverlyhills.org. She has a website too. Good luck, and thanks!
Tried to add a comment. Perhaps he monitors them before publishing?
Tried to comment on that little article, suggesting to the mayor to ask DN about her Mexico City Olympic trials swim and her female-first around Manhattan. Again, maybe the mayor's webmaster monitors comments first, because nothing showed up after I confirmed I'm human.
We're all just carbon, water, starlight, oxygen and dreams
Yes, I think both sites monitor their comments. And the response the mayor sent me seemed automated. Nice to be invited though
Imagine a flying banner over this walk "Diana Nyad is a fraud" http://www.flysigns.com/op-los-angeles.php
Not in a position to set this up, but I'd certainly contribute to a go fund me campaign for someone who would.
A few other pages announcing Nyad's upcoming engagements:
1. Extreme Swimmer Diana Nyad Joins Monday’s Walk With The Mayor
2. Diana Nyad Joins Beverly Hills’ “Walk With The Mayor”
3. 2017 National Conference on Student Recruitment, Marketing, and Retention
I've posted comments to the first two, but they haven't shown up.
By the way, Nyad appears to be receiving $30,000-$50,000 per appearance.
Imagine that.. she's making as much money in one "appearance " as some people make in a year. Maybe I'll set up a "walk with Suzie" or better yet "Walk with Sarah Thomas" and retire!
Following in the master's footsteps: lie, cheat, destroy lives, establish humanitarian organization with you at the center...
Livestrong facts and fiction
EverWalk
EverWalk Hub
Would that it were so. Everwalk sponsors, according to the site, are...
Johnson & Johnson (founding sponsors)
24 Hour Fitness
ABC--Good Morning America
Facebook LIVE
She also has a walk coming up with River L.A.
Johnson and Johnson and every other major corporation that sponsors events does not list those events or programs on its website, nor do they post about them on social media. If they were not sponsoring it, the GMA appearance would have been shut down so fast your head would have spun around. I live down the street from their international HQ and know some of their marketing folks.
24-Hour Fitness is a chain of gyms in the U.S. It's a real thing. Maybe the website is down or the address is wrong.
I get the desire to talk crap about Nyad, but creating your own fantasies in your head isn't helping the overall goal. In fact, this thread (outside of the fact check website) makes me very uncomfortable with the tone because it's getting to (and may have even already crossed) the line of affecting your credibility. Google sleuthing doesn't explain everything, y'know.
@rosemarymint
Would you elaborate on this?
Thanks
Her point was well-articulated - not sure what needs to be elaborated.
There's a fine art to minority influence (i.e., changing widespread yet false beliefs), and it's incredibly easy to come off as a shrill, paranoid crank - at which point everyone just tunes you out.
The idea that Everwalk is fabricating major sponsors... is arguably in that territory. It just doesn't help.
Observe what @danslos has done - and continues to do. Offer facts and evidence when the opportunity presents itself - patiently, calmly, rationally. This is the model.
"creating your own fantasies in your head isn't helping the overall goal"
Wondering what she was referring to specifically...?
I was specifically responding to the conjectures that Niek made regarding sponsors for EverWalk, specifically this:
"Make objections to her EverWalk sponsors.
You'll find -not working links - at the right bottom.
Or the 'sponsors' have nothing about EverWalk or DN
.
Looks like they're rats scrambling for a way off a sinking ship."
We are a community of people who value rational data and evidence regarding our sport. Throwing this level of conjecture into the mix, on a thread about someone that is extremely polarizing, does not help us.
C -- I suspect that the sponsors have no control over the quality and maintenance of the EverWalk website. Thus, broken links, links that never worked in the first place, etc.
While out walking my dog yday morning, I ran in to a neighbor of mine. He asked how the weekend went and how my swim went, so I told him. A minute or so into the conversation he asked
I stopped him right there, directed him to your website, @danslos, and told him if he wanted to talk more in-depth about it, he'd have to pull his fire pit and a bunch of beers out into the yard.
We're all just carbon, water, starlight, oxygen and dreams
@IronMike, you can tell him that I'd be glad to chat.
In the meantime, I've had a bit of extra time lately for Nyad-related research. This morning, I stumbled across a Nyad/Manhattan Facebook post that I hadn't seen before:
To reiterate: Nyad knew in 1978 that she wasn't first. After unknowing it, she re-knew it in 2011, then quickly un-knew it again. Kind of breathtaking.
I know sport and politics should never mix however I can see where she takes her lead from....
From DNOWS:
Gag me.
We're all just carbon, water, starlight, oxygen and dreams
Apologies for ruining anyone's day, but this just in:
The page at the book awards site is here:
The contact page lists two names. I wrote the following, but would very much appreciate suggestions for what I might do to improve my response. I'd like to create a template that's forceful yet brief and not too mean-spirited....
Los Angeles, CA, USA
(310) 880-5828
(Let us seek the great joy of having done.)
--Juan Ramon Jimenez
The Cross Sports Book Awards?
Never heard of 'em.
@danslos
Concise and germane.
I added a short final paragraph as the letter lacks an explanation why you're writing:
'Her inconsistent claims are well known within the global marathon swimming community who are engaged in trying to highlight and correct these perceptions in fear that they become accepted as fact.'
Great addition. I'll append it on the next go 'round.
Does anybody know if anyone has attempted Cuba-to-Florida other than Walter Poenisch, Susie Maroney, Penny Palfrey, Chloe McCardel, and DN? I need to respond to another DN acolyte but must get my facts straight first.
I will post more about this shortly, once I finish the response. Nyad appears to be either upping her game fiction-wise, or she's suffering from dementia.
Skip Storch, in a shark cage:
http://www.upi.com/Archives/1993/06/03/Swimmer-gives-up-attempt-to-cross-Florida-Straits/7409739080000/
Thanks @evmo.
I asked about Cuba-to-Florida swimmers because I just came across an interview that Nyad did with John Brenkus on his podcast Brink of Midnight. In that interview, Nyad makes a number of astounding assertions and non-assertions:
...
Here's a link to what I wrote to John Brenkus...
"Dear John--I Just listened to your interview with Diana Nyad...."
...so that you can check my work and see if I missed something important.
Using US politics as a guide (no matter which side you are on) , the best bet is to hound her sponsors until they see the light.....sponsored have pulled out of agreements so as to not be associated with the language or actions of individuals for fear their products/services will be tainted. Hell, maybe we should continually tweet the shit out of it as well.
Great Letter @danslos !! Note Chloe Mc has also done the triple EC along with John, Ali & Phil.
That is a really good letter.
@paulm, thank you. Don't know how I missed that.
@mysterybob, it'd be great if everybody tweeted the shit out of it.
@danslos
Excellent letter!
Has anyone ever confronted her at one of her talks?
Kinda get the feeling that now she's into her rythmn she isn't going to change her story. Only when confronted in front of an audience with a journalist present to report it will she have to address the inconsistencies she's created. Once a journalist has documented it, it can be referred to and used to greater effect.
Similar to Lance Armstrong, once you state something a thousand times people don't question anymore. DN needs her Oprah Winfrey moment.
Marathon swimming has to stand above the recent trend to create alternative facts.
I believe many of us here wrote to Finis.
We're all just carbon, water, starlight, oxygen and dreams
My social media consultant (a.k.a. my youngest son) reminded me that I could grab clips from the John Brenkus interview. Though this meant I had to listen again, I gritted my teeth and forged ahead. Good thing, because I missed a few doozies on the first pass, most notably this riff on jellyfish.
I'm not sure of the exact number of box jelly species, but wikipedia says that "[at] least 36 species...were known as of 2007." And it would seem that a sting is only likely to kill you instantaneously if you're a shrimp or other small sea creature.
Here are the other clips that I mentioned previously:
everybody wants what I got, but...
...I respect the quitters.
She has a similar talking style to Donald Trump: sufficiently loud to create authority and fast to deny an interruption, with a a tone of insistence that combined, ensures she's not challenged. She's also well practised in what she's saying, she's not ad-libbing.
Look into my eyes.... you are feeling sleepy.... ;-)
:-&
@WarmWater, you're more right about that than you may know. If you go to 13:20 on this video, you'll hear a familiar story. If you want some REAL amusement though, check out 10:30 and 11:50.
I just stumbled on this and haven't watched the whole thing. I'm sure there's more interesting stuff.
such arrogance coming across in the interview
Who are her sponsors? FINIS has been mentioned elsewhere. A brief look at her website didn't turn up much else.