check out results from Open water WC’s…for 5k…that’s smoking. Also big props to Elliot Rushton for 12th place. Recent Kenyon College grad and DIII record holder.
http://www.swimnews.com/News/displayStory.jhtml?action=get&id=3657
The open water swim was done in Montreal Olympic bassin were usually the rowers race and train. It’s basically a giant pool of 2000m by 100m there’s about 8-9 feet of water. The swimmer can follow a cable in the bottom of the water which is use to hang the buoys. This makes up for a really easy open water swim (never need to sight) plus they draft between themselves. Never the less, I’m pretty sure they miss calculated the lenght of the course, because there’s no current in the bassin for having swim and race triathlons in it many times. 51:17 it’s a pace of 1:02 per 100m!!! No that’s not possible there’s going to be maybe 4 or 5 guys that will break the 15min barrier in the 1500m during the World Championship, so having that many guys in the 51mins zone that’s 3 straight 1500m in 15min… for sure not proper distance.
The 11th Male Swimmer, Jarrod Ballem, is my Master’s Coach at the University of Calgary.
Swell guy, that race went pretty good for him. I joined the Master’s Club in January, and he’s gotten me from maybe completing 100m freestyle, to a 1:55/100 at a recent sprint in a shallow pool with no flip turns.
5K lead pack at recent open water worlds meets:
Dubai 2004: men were 56:xx, women were 1:03:xx
Barcelona 2003- men were 53:xx, women were 57:xx
Sharm el Shekh 2002: women were 56:xx, men were 51:xx
Fukuoka 2001: men were 56:xx, women were 1:00
Hawaii 2000: men were 59:xx, women were 1:02:xx
Perth 1998: men were 55:xx, women were 59:xx
So similar to Egypt time-wise. I remember Barcelona had some moderate chop on course for most of the races. Not sure about Dubai conditions.
IMHO Drafting is the difference.
Styrrell
that montreal course is wickedly fast. at world’s in 1999, laurent jeanselme went sub-18, and lindquist swum an 18:36. it’s essentially a huge swimming pool that you get to wear a wetsuit in, with a wicked draft and no waves.
i’m racing it in september and incredibly excited.
-mike
No way is drafting the difference, cause those guys aren’t working together. It was probably a short course, but most of those guys are animals.
If you’ll notice, Sara McLarty got 4th in the women, and for an indication of her speed in the water, she beat the 2nd woman out of the water at NYC Tri by 1 1/2 minutes.
I’m not sure that you will be able to wear your wetsuit because we have been having so far a real hot summer… Today with the humidex factor it was 104. So prepare yourself for a big chance of no wetsuit.
Note: In 1999, during the Triathlon worlds they didn’t wear wetsuit…
that’s sad news - i can’t believe i didn’t think of it. all my friends in ontario have been cooking all summer. it’s a draft-legal race and i’m hooped if i have a bad swim and can’t make a decent pack on the bike. of course, in edmonton we tend to take wetsuits for granted pretty much all summer long. . .
-mike
Normally in september temperature drop a lot during the night so the 17th is pretty far way… you may have a chance…
hey, i raced the DL race last year… no wetsuits, i can guarantee you that they won’t be allowed this year, even if the water is 19C, they’ll say its 20 and make you race without a wetsuit, if your racing the draft legal race its a canadian championship thus another reason to not let you use wetsuits… I’m racing too again this year, hope to see you there. My swim will probably also be pretty bad, but i just broke my wrist and with this cast would be happy to come out sub 22 :(… but hopefully it will be off by then
-david
You doing the Esprit IM distance race there? Is that what it’s still called?
That was my first IM distance race and it was awesome in many ways but also crap in some ways.
The swim is excellent 2km down and 2km back. I went about 6 minutes faster than I hoped for. Having spectators walking alongside the swim was cool. My wife reprimanded my young son fro throwing stones in the basin. Apparentlyhe didn’t notice the swimmers, daddy included.
The bike was surprising difficult. Headwind all the way up the exposed side and no tailwind on the sheltered side. A few tiny rises on the bike, not hills, but 41 times up anything adds up. Tons o’ support so no need for carrying spares or drink bottles or food.
The run was 1/2 on a dirt access road andthe other half was on asphalt with quite a slope. I got IT band syndrome really badly and had to walk/limp for 30km of the run. I nearly dropped out but didn’t 
Good race, got me stoked for the next IM that was for sure. Now I’m an addict.
The guy who won the 5k (Thomas Lurz) actually comes from my hometown swim club.
As my hometown is somewhat “geographically challenged”, he does not do that much open water swimming. Most of his workouts are in the weightroom and in a 50m indoor pool. However he does go on regualar training camps for open water swimming. Trust me, he is a rocket in the pool even over shorter distances like the 1500m (I think he qualified for the Sydney Olympics).
What a sprint finish!
Agreed. But what is every other IM swimmer doing?? DRAFTING. Wetsuit or not…these people are 5-6 minutes off exceptional IM times and they are going .7 mile farther. Amazing!!!
It’s the difference between being considered to be a good triathlon swimmer, and having a top 20 World ranking as a fish. (McLarty, Taormina, Lindquist, Potts)
no mate, i’m in for the nat’l university champs - mercifully, it’s draft-legal and olympic distance. i’d heard lots about the iron-distance race there and considered doing it when i was a teenager (i used to be all about the long course, but have since seen the light and gone short again) and the opinions seemed to be about the same as yours: lots of support and company, and lots of tedium. from that point of view, most were saying it was a great ‘first’ ironman - ditto what you said.
pumped about it, though - seems like a killer venue for a short-course race.
-mike
Mike,
It was a great course period.
Particularly good was seeing ones family 42 times during the bike. Even if at about lap 35 my wife asked. “How much longer are you going to be?” (still had the marathon to do) “The kids are getting tired” I resisted the urge to get off the bike and smack her. It was only 41 laps, but the organizers computer counting system crashed at about lap 30 (for me) and they asked us to check our bike computer odometers. I knew the exact error in mine (180km should have read right around 179.5km) when I did the math in my head, I didn’t do very well with the long division and ended up doing an extra lap. Damn!
Other than that, the surface was beautifully smooth and a joy to ride on. To create some fun for myself, I toyed with seeing how fast I could negotiate the hairpin turn on the bike course. I managed 36km/h on one lap but was very glad not to have skidded to an ignominious end in the crowd.
Oh yeah, the chairs in the communal showers were great. Nice to wobble just a few short metres from the finish line, sit in a chair in your clothes under the warm water, chat with other destroyed athletes and chill out while waiting for a massage. Some of the guys even had their post race food delivered to them in the shower. Funny as hell now that I think back.
I reckon on a good day, with the right competitor, a world record could be set on that course. Too bad it’s not an M-Dot race.
Too bad about the “French Problem” there tho’
top tri swimmers are pretty slow compared to top swimmers.
Depends on what you call slow. Obviously even the best triathletes wouldn’t make a final in a world class swim meet, but some, including local lads Haydn Wooley and Brent Foster can hold their heads up, even now that they are over 30.
Keiran Doe is also a pretty good swimmer. Allegedly he can backstroke 1500m within a few seconds of Hamish Carter swimming 1500m freestyle! Not that Hamish is a world beater in the swim in tris or in pure swimming. Mind you, we are splitting hairs here because a 1500m swim in 17 minutes is pretty good if you ask me.
they are slow compared to world class swimmers.
kieran doe used to be a backstroker when he swam.