Welcome to State of Swimming +. Our free-to-view service will continue over at our parent site stateofswimming.com, while SOS+ is where readers can dive deeper into the work of our Editor, Craig Lord, and guests.

SOS+ sets sail on July 4 with our first roll-out of subscription-only articles and the SOS form guide to the Paris 2024 Olympic Games and two other related topics of focus this season: The China Diaries and our Women's section in support of Fair Play and Equity for female athletes.

Our first Newsletter will be sent out in the week beginning July 8.

What's It All About?

Our opening SOS+ content, much of it freely available at our parent site stateofswimming.com, is here simply to provide a reminder of what we do ahead of what we're about to do in Olympic season, which will pave the way for new ventures beyond Paris 2024.

The launch date is no coincidence. We are the most independent home of swimming coverage anywhere in the world. We can state that for two simple reasons.

• governance response to our conscience-of-swimming coverage and campaigning down the years has meant that we have no advertisers, no partners, no sponsors nor do we have any commercial connections with any swimming organisations or their affiliates (thank you to all those who made that possible
• and, where we do have backers, they hear, we listen and, should they wish, they choose to support our work, openly or otherwise, without expectation of influencing the jury.

It comes down to a simple need for separation of 'church' and this State of Swimming or any other media dedicated to swimming coverage that wishes to call itself 'independent'. My direct experience is that the term is used when it ought not to be because the jury is most definitely influenced by connections that can in no way whatsoever be described as independent. Toxic is much more accurate in some cases.

Genuine independence is challenging, of course, but SOS, with your help, intends to keep highlighting the news that many others won't touch. Our immediate focus, as stated, will be the Games, the athletes, the action, the outcomes, the colour of the ultimate arena for Olympic sports, our Postcards from Paris and the environment in which it all unfolds according to the tone and conditions set by organisers and governors.

Paris Postcards - Our Summer 2024 Focus

This month and next, this journalist will be in Paris to cover pool and open water swimming, among other events, for The Times and Sunday Times. The 33rd Olympiads will take me into a fourth decade of reporting from the ultimate competition in the sport.

SOS will publish race reports as soon as possible after the clock stops in each passing final, the swimmers have spoken and the work is done. Deeper analysis will follow for subscribers and the Fellowship here at SOS+.

In the build up to Paris over the coming three weeks, SOS+ will also be the home of State of Swimming's event-by-event previews and form guide, and part of a a focus this season on three themes linked intrinsically by the red thread of athlete welfare and Fair Play:

• PARIS 2024: Postcards from Paris, the SOS form guide and daily analysis of the swimming at the Olympic Games from July 27
• CHINA DIARIES: The story of a new China Crisis and the diaries that underpin a truly troubling narrative that has caused schism in global anti-doping. Why Diaries? Because we've got some to share with you - and they explain a lot
• WOMEN: In support of the Save Women's Sports Movement, here we celebrate the achievements of female athletes, note the continuing struggle for equality in sport and highlight Unfair and Unsafe Play when we see it

Other themes will be added in their time and season, including Governance, celebration or critique entirely dependent on the performance of those tasked with guardianship.

You can read more on the service and subscription tiers on our About This Site & Service page, or on the sign up page for readers, subscribers and members of the SOS Fellowship:

SOS+ asks would-be subscribers to take a moment to read out short Terms and Conditions.

If you have any questions or suggestions, please write to the Editor - craig.lord@stateofswimming.com.

The Future: Charting A New Course Beyond Paris

Down the line, our plans include some legacy projects, including a series of publications long in the planning and writing. That work will be published in a number of formats to match this age and possibly the next, from physical books to e-books, audio books and more.

In 2023, my work with Olympic swimmer Sharron Davies on Unfair Play, The Battle For Women's Sport, published by the award-winning Swift Press, was shortlisted for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year.

Out in paperback in July 2024 with an update chapter, Unfair Play was also a Times and Telegraph UK Book of the Year in 2023 and was shortlisted for Best Sports Writing Award in the 2024 UK Sports Book Awards. If you read one book charting the mispogyny and mistreatment of women in sport, including the devastating impact of GDR doping and the wilful blind eye of governors global, continental and domestic ever since, try this one:

In the past year, Craig also helped pen Turning The Tide with Michelle Ford, who tells her story from the height of the Cold War before and after becoming Olympic champion in the 800m freestyle as the only western woman to claim gold in the pool at Moscow 1980.

Published by Fair Play Publishing in Australia, the book dives into misogyny and the challenges of the amateur era, the poor treatment of young athletes caught up in the boycott of 1980, swimmers who have never been recognised for their achievements in the way that other Olympic teams have, and the elephant in the IOC room: a complete lack of responsibility and accountability, let alone action, for the impact of East Germany's systematic doping on generations of athletes, mainly teenage girls in a sport such as swimming.

The fraud was headquartered at an IOC-accredited laboratory. Turning The Tide has a forward by IOC president Thomas Bach, in which he praises Ford's fight to “Right The Wrongs” Of the GDR doping era. Next step: the reconciliation and recognition process that the IOC could and should have embraced at any time during the past 35 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Time to heal the harm!

More books are in the pipeline, They will tie in with this SOS+ project, the flow of work all the smoother with the support of you, the readers who care about athlete, coach, family and entourage welfare, integrity, good governance and the environment in which all of you work and play.

The Times review described Unfair Play as

"A hard-hitting, important, scientifically rigorous polemic ... thrillingly fearless".

And that is what we aim for in some of our work here at SOS+ when it comes to clean, fair and safe sport and the environment in which athletes work with their coaches, parents and support networks in situations that range from the highly professional to the rank and damaging remains of the amateur era.

To those who are willing and able, please support our work with a subscription:

Or a donation:

Your help is much appreciated.

With sincere thanks, Craig and Team at SOS.