What’s faster the Arena Powerskin openwater suit or the high-end triathlon swimskin? Are there any potential gains there?
It would be awesome if these top swimmers somehow got incentivized to race the Ho’ala Swim. Some vendor should put some prize money reward up for anyone who breaks 40 min. I would definitely watch a Speedo or Roka or Sailfish or HUUB “Kona Sub40 Project”.
I think that the rules are a little more lax in FINA OW rules, and of course they dont have to wear a Tri suit underneath too! So maybe a 1/2 second a 100 faster, in that range.
I think all this “on paper” speculating is missing the larger point. We have actual world class swimmers who have done this swim, and the guy who just set the record on the new short course is among them. Now as he pointed out himself, he is a few minutes off the front of a large world class field, but not that far. And as he corroborated with my assessment, 2 minutes seems like a fair gap between his record and what the very top could do. Which of course is no where near 40 flat. Now keep in mind that it is not an exact course either, but it is consistent as to measurement(since 2016)…And it was a fast year last time around, so wouldn’t expect the conditions to favor much faster times…
I think that 43 flat would be the marker here, but of course you have to finish the rest of the race for it to count!! (-;
“A few minutes off the mark” is a long way off. No disrespect intended because I believe Sam recognizes the fact himself, but I do feel the need to put some respect on what it means to truly be a world class swimmer.
A 3:59/15:59 400/1500 LCM would put him at a mid tier D1/ top tier D2-3 NCAA school. He’s a league behind qualifying for D1 NCAAs, US nationals, and US Olympic trials (15:39). Even if we assume he’s better open water, there’s still 10-15 men faster than him in Australia, which means there’s 40-60 men faster in the US and ~200 men faster in the world.
Comparing times is a bit less representative given open water fluctuations but nevertheless… A 15:34 in the 1500 was 199th in the world last year, 2 seconds faster than Sam /100m. Extrapolating the rankings (World Aquatics only lists the top 199) puts him at 2293rd. He’d be further down the rankings if we factored in the women who were also faster than him. Last year, when he was presumably swimming more, Sam finished 9 minutes down in the 10k at Aus Nationals, call it 4 minutes over 3.8km. With more elaborate extrapolation, that indicates that the lead swimmers (neither of whom were Olympic caliber) would have been close to the 40/41 minute mark over the first 3.8km and then continued swimming for another hour + at the same pace.
Finally, fellow Australian and 10k silver medalist, Moesha Johnson, has beaten Sam’s PB over 1500m in the pool and has a 10k PB of 1:56, several minutes faster than Sam swam at the relatively flat Busselton 10k for last years nationals. I’d put her down for a 44:59 in Kona 
Lol, no one is swimming 40 minutes at Kona. I bet 10 grand on it.
Something else been passed back and forward on the board before - the really great one speed diesel engines, who get into their distance pace and grind. I dont have a reliable time to use for Jordan Rap but he is someone that you have raised on this before.
A few of my favourite on the list here - others wellknown and some less wellknown
so i asked the computer on chat gpt to do a comparison of the times from 1984 and 2024 and rate the events of order of improvement. i have spent about 15 minutes telling it that it has gotten some of the events wrong and has people swimming the 200 medley in 1:59 in 1980. cant trust shit from chat gpt
