TESTING TIME
On 13 August, London’s Hyde Park and its boating
lake, the Serpentine, saw some of the world’s best open water swimmers competing over next year’s proposed Olympic 10km marathon swim course. There were some notable absences, including current World 10km Champion Keri-Anne Payne, who was taking a short break before commencing her 2012 training, but the event otherwise provided a good idea of how things will go on the day. Athletes and organisers reported that everything went prety smoothly. “We’re really pleased,” said a beaming Colin Hill, technical operations manager for the 2012 event. “It was a lot of work, a big team and we’re just thrilled it’s gone well.” Germany’s Thomas Lurz, who took second in the men’s race behind Canadian Richard Weinberger, was particularly enthusiastic about the venue. “Sometimes you do a race where you swim 5km out to sea, turn around and swim back. Here spectators can watch the entire race. It’s a good course.” His only complaint was the cold. “I’ll need to put on some weight before next year,” he said. The men’s and women’s races
played out quite differently, and this was reflected in athletes’ comments aſter the event. The women swam in a tight pack with Italy’s Martina Grimaldi beating Eva Fabian of the
London prepares: the start of the men's race
5 MINUTES WITH…
USA by less than a second in a dramatic sprint finish, and the top five completing the course within 2.5 seconds of each other, aſter more than two hours of swimming. “The course is a bit narrow with few possibilities to atack or escape,” said Grimaldi. Fabian said it wasn’t as bad as in Shanghai. “I expect it to be tougher next year when there’s more at stake. A short course encourages contact.” In the men’s race Zibin Zhang of China led out at a fearsome pace leaving the field strung out in a long line. Aſter the first lap, world champion and third-place finisher Spyros Gianniotis (Greece) was nearly 20 seconds down on the leader. Zhang maintained the lead for five laps but faded to 12th place in the final lap. Meanwhile, Richard Weinberger made a decisive move at the final feeding station, opened up a gap and extended his lead to 26 seconds at the end. The London Organising Commitee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (LOCOG) did consider hosting the marathon swimming at Dorney Lake near Windsor. However, David Luckes of LOCOG says, "We wanted to bring the sport into the heart of the city.” They’ve certainly done that, and with free spectator access to much of the course, open water swimming could prove to be one of the highlights of next year’s Olympics.
We caught up with Howard Keech, whose crossing of the North Channel on 5 August made him only the 13th person to conquer it
Howard Keech beat the cold and jellyfish to triumph
How was your swim? We’ve heard it’s very cold… “Yes, it was cold, but I’ve been swimming in the sea all year round so I was prepared for it.”
Did you enjoy it then? “The first six hours were great. It was lovely and calm and I was having the best time of my life.”
What was the worst part? “I wasn’t bothered by either the cold or the distance, you can prepare for both of those. I knew jellyfish would be an issue but it still came as a shock when I saw my first, especially as it was bigger than me!”
Did you get stung badly? “I was very lucky. I only got stung about eight times. The jellyfish were definitely there all the time, though – I could see them below me. At one point it was like a minefield. It felt like I wasn’t swimming but playing a nasty kind of dodgeball. Later the water got murky and I couldn’t see the jellyfish anymore. The stings weren’t so bad in the water but once I’d finished I certainly knew about it.”
Congratulations to Howard on his successful crossing of the North Channel in 13 hours 25 minutes
ISN’T IT IRONIC?
The lyrics of Alanis Morissete's Ironic had nothing on the real-life events that unfolded at a fundraising event in Joss Bay, near Broadstairs, last month, when swimmers who were raising money for the Royal National Lifeboat Institute (RNLI) needed to be rescued by the boats they were there to help. When the current got stronger very suddenly during the 2.4 mile event off the Kent coast swimmers were dragged out to sea and RNLI lifeboats called in. “Our inshore lifeboat at Margate was on exercise in the area when the organisers reported a number of swimmers were experiencing difficulties,” Peter Barker, from Margate RNLI lifeboat station, told the Press Association. Luckily there were no injuries or problems, but it took a couple of hours to get all the swimmers back to shore. Mike Jennings, one of only three swimmers who reached the finish line of the race, told BBC Kent: “I didn't realise the seriousness of it until I got back to shore. They were still bringing them back at least an hour aſter I'd finished.”
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Photo © Mike Lewis /Open Water Source
Photo © Terry Lees
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