Jill,

I assume that is a "draft-legal" swim?

What are some of the tactical considerations? It's an interesting format and I've never seen one raced.

That's huge... Do you think there is going to be an entirely different set of swimmers doing that kind of distance or will that be just another event that the existing athletes add to thier day?

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Don't hold back

Open water racing's pretty much the same as open water tri swims- find the swimmers at your pace, form a pack, and draft like heck. Every so often, speed up a bit to try to shake the weaker swimmers off the back, and then sprint like hell at the finish. It's just a good bit quicker than what you get for an Ironman distance swim.


You do sometimes get overlap between the 5K open water swimmers and the 1500M pool swimmers, but not so much with the 1500M/10K crowd.


Results from last year's Montreal World Championships:

5K Women:

1 Ilchenko Larisa, RUS 1988 55:40.1
2 Keefe Margy, USA 1985 55:44.3
3 Van Dijk Edith, NED 1973 55:46.6
4 McLarty Sara, USA 1983 55:56.1
5 Pechanova Jana, CZE 1981 56:18.3


5K men:

1 Lurz Thomas, GER 1979 51:17.2
2 Peterson Chip, USA 1987 51:18.8
3 Ercoli Simone, ITA 1979 51:18.9
4 Pampana Samuele, ITA 1976 51:37.5
5 Bircher Alan, GBR 1981 51:37.6


10K women:

1 Van Dijk Edith, NED 1973 1:56.00.5
2 Vitale Federicka, ITA 1983 1:56.02.5
3 Kamrai Britta, GER 1979 1:56.04.0
4 Popova Ksenia, RUS 1988 1:56.04.5
5 Hutchinson Trudee, AUS 1980 1:56.07.7


11. McLarty Sara, USA 1983 1:56.16.9 2


10K men:

Peterson Chip, USA 1987 1:46.38.1
2 Lurz Thomas, GER 1979 1:46.45.2
3 Stoychev Petar, BUL 1976 1:46.59.4
4 Rondy Gilles, FRA 1981 1:47.04.9
5 vd Weijden Maarten, NED 1981 1:47.07.4

I don't know what Sara's goals are for triathlon right now, but if it's just "make the olympics" there is no reason why she shouldn't completely focus on swimming. She has a relative cake-walk to the Olympics in the 10K. Not to mention she is still one of the best 400m freestylers in the world.

multiple laps/lengths?

how do they know the location of the exact finish line? touch a wall?

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kangaroo -- please do not read or respond to any of my posts

Most have multiple laps. The have a floating wall with touch pads for the finish.

Open water, are you familiar with the concept of open water swimming? ;-)



And yes, they touch a wall to finish. Sometimes after 5 or 10k there's a sprint, very cool.

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"Yeah, no one likes a smartass, but we all like stars" - Thom Yorke


smartasscoach.tri-oeiras.com

It's what looks like a 6-10 foot long touch pad suspended about two or three feet above the in-water finish line. Smack your hand against the pad as you finish to get an official time.

One of the local pro triathletes (John Kenny) here in NJ took like 17th at the World 10K OW swim this year, going something around1:47. He beat me out of the water at one race in July by only :40. Yeah, I had a wetsuit and he didn't, and the swim only took him 4:28, but...

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"Go yell at an M&M"

That's cool. I'd watch that. Too bad NBC probably won't let me. :(

-C

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Any run that doesn't include pooping in someone's front yard is a win.

It's a popular sport, so NBC will probably show the last three minutes of it during prime time network coverage.

The thing that bugs me is that the non-popular sports actually get treated better by NBC. You will get full game coverage of Bulgaria v. Egypt men's team handball and Croatia v. China in women's volleyball and comprehensive modern pentathlon reporting. Granted it's airing at 3:00am on MSNBC (Go Tivo!) but you get to see everything because they kill the human interest stories for those kinds of sports in favor of just showing the damn games and routines.

In the words of the esteemed Mr. Demerly...."that will be HUGE"

This may be a dumb question but what's the wetsuit rule for real swimmers? Do they find bodies of water that are reasonably warm for a 10k race or do they allow wetsuits sometimes? I think that swimming close to 2 hours in 50-60F water wouldn't be very enjoyable. This would be one open water event where the awesome swimmers couldn't complain about the weak swimmers (ie. runners like me) getting an advantage from their floaty-devices since they're all studly swimmers with or without the neoprene :)

I may be wrong on this, but I seem to recall that FINA does not allow wetsuits for any swim race regardless of temperature. For example, the 28 mile Swim Around Manhattan does not allow wetsuits because it is FINA sanctioned, despite the fact the race used to take place in early June when the water was still in the 60's.

Chris

Open water swimming = no wetsuit.

Here in Quebec they have one of the biggest open water races : Traversee internationale du Lac St-Jean. It varies from year to year from 30km to 42km and believe me the water is cold!!! Some parts of the lake can be about 60 degrees, or below. A friend of mine one the race in the mid 90's. I think he finished in about 9 hours. These long distance swimmers are crazy!!!

derek

I may be wrong on this, but I seem to recall that FINA does not allow wetsuits for any swim race regardless of temperature. For example, the 28 mile Swim Around Manhattan does not allow wetsuits because it is FINA sanctioned, despite the fact the race used to take place in early June when the water was still in the 60's.

FINA rules state no wetsuits and the minimum water temp is 16C which is about 60F

That's cool. I'd watch that. Too bad NBC probably won't let me. :(

Hopefully there will be a Canadian in the race then those of us lucky enough to live within reception range of the CBC will get live full length race coverage.

it's a shame that Edith van Dijk won't be there. This year was her last (even though she won almost every race this year).

Open water, are you familiar with the concept of open water swimming? ;-)


only in my nightmares :) but honestly, you're saying they are going to take the swimmers 10K out in the ocean and have them swim back. no laps or lengths? no course?

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kangaroo -- please do not read or respond to any of my posts

This is great news. We can expect to see a large influx of top current collegiate and post-collegiate distance talent who are a bit off the time in the 400/800/1500 get involved in OW swimming, starting tomorrow.

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Marty Gaal, CSCS
One Step Beyond Coaching
Triangle Open Water Swim Series | Old School Aquathon Series
Powerstroke® Freestyle Technique DVD

This is good news.
When godforesaken BMX racing was added to the Beijing events list it was necessary to drop another cycling event, specifically the men's kilo and the women's 500m, the former of which had been in the program since the advent of the modern Olympics. It doesn't seem that any of the main swimming events will be getting cut (FINA were lobbying for 3 MORE events). Does anyone know why swimming seems to get away with this and cycling doesn't?
If they want to cut something, I suggest cutting synchronised ANYTHING.