Open Water

The English Channel has been crossed by swimmers on record for more than a century. But most crossings happen between similar points, on in England and the other across the channel in France. Kirstie Beechey was determined to swim the channel from one of her favorite points to another, so she set ou...

Thursday’s Google Doodle honored Arati Saha, on what would’ve been the Indian Channel swimmer’s 80th birthday. Saha was a trailblazer in the pool, born in Kolkata in 1940. She learned to swim under the guidance of Indian Olympian Sachin Nag, winning medals in national competition against adults at a...

Catherine Breed completed a crossing of Monterey Bay this week in less than 13 hours, setting a record for the open-water course. Breed’s swim started Monday night at Twin Lakes State Beach in Santa Cruz. Through water temperatures in the 50s and schools of jellyfish, Breed arrived at San Carlos Bea...

The Saint Lucia Channel Swim Event in 2020 will include three open-water attempts next month in a scaled back event due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Three crossings are scheduled for the Saint Lucia Channel, which separates the island from Martinique 21 miles (33 kilometers) to the north. The announcem...

Practical Training Book is a Must-have for Time-Crunched Triathletes & Open-Water Swimmers Expert coaches and authors Conrad Goeringer (The Working Triathlete), and Rob Sleamaker ( SERIOUS Training for Endurance Athletes) have announced the publication of their new book, Triathlon Freestyle Simplifi...

Abby Bergman last week completed a rare crossing of Santa Monica bay, a 27-mile swim from Point Dume in Malibu to Rocky Point in Palos Verdes. Bergman made the swim in 16 hours, 25 minutes and 53 seconds through rough seas that greeted her in the 62-degree waters off Malibu. Headwinds at the start r...

Vera Rivard, a 16-year-old U.S. swimmer, completed a solo swim of the English Channel on Sept. 1. The Springfield, New Hampshire, and Derby, Vermont, resident, finished the swim in 14 hours, 10 minutes, becoming the youngest to complete the crossing in years. According to Channel Swimming Associatio...

Can Women Beat Men in Marathon Swimming? By Daniela Navarrete, Swimming World College Intern. Swimmers have biological differences that affect their performance according to their sex. Women have lower hemoglobin levels, oxygen supply, and do not develop as much muscular power. Therefore, in sprint ...

Barry Watson, who held the record for the fastest English Channel crossing from 1964 to 1977, died this week at age 81. A native of Crossflatts, West Yorkshire, Watson swam the channel in 1964 at age 26. His time of nine hours, 35 minutes to cover the 21 miles from England to France held for nearly ...

Haley Anderson was all set to represent the United States in her third Olympic Games this summer in the 10K open water swim. Anderson had already qualified to swim the 10K in Tokyo by virtue of her silver medal in the event at the 2019 World Championships, which served as the first round of qualific...

The Reasons Why Five Lakes Became New HOMES for Swimmers By Gigi Picard Swimming World College Intern This summer was quite literally a dry spell for swimmers all over the world. A majority of swimmers in the United States lost access to school, club, community pools – and even local gyms dried up. ...

Jon Ornée and his “Epic Swim 2020” team have been dreaming about the chance to accomplish a truly rare feat in open water swimming. For the second time in history, a recorded swim has crossed Lake Michigan. Nearly 22 years after the first swimmer crossed Lake Michigan, Epic Swim 2020, a six-man rela...

Ultra-marathon swimmer Chloë McCardel is expected to leave British shores early Sunday morning (August 16) in her extraordinary quest to break the men’s world record for the number of English Channel crossings. The Melbourne-raised Sydneysider, who has spent many months in Kent, UK, over the past de...

Vitaliy Khudyakov has completed a 56-kilometer swim over 13 hours in a lake in Kyrgyzstan, Vitaliy Khudyakov . The swim took place last week in Issyk-Kul, the second-largest Alpine lake in the world at 1,609 meters above sea level. It's also one of the deepest lakes in the world. The swim, which too...

Swimmers are now able to view real-time GPS performance metrics and Heart Rate in open water through free firmware update. FORM, the direct-to-consumer sports technology company behind the FORM Smart Swim Goggles, today announced the launch of a free firmware update which enables swimmers to access ...

From the Pool to the Ocean: The Transition (Open Water Swimming) By Daniela Navarrete, Swimming World College Intern. Most swimmers have swum or will swim at least an off event throughout their careers. These off events could include trying out for open water, you never know! Sometimes it might turn...

Drowning Prevention In 1997, young Charlie Hayes, asked his mother to see the set of the world's #1 TV series Baywatch.  This was his last wish as he was suffering from terminal cancer. His wish came true. He met the legendary creator, director and producer, Greg Bonann. The love he received from Gr...

Greek open-water ace Spyros Gianniotis will lead the shoal out for The Authentic Marathon Swim at Artemision this September, 2,500 years after Skyllias and Hydna, recorded by Herodotus as the first long-distance swimmers in history, swam the same course. The Authentic Marathon Swim, originally due t...

In one of the first sanctioned marathon swims since the falling of COVID-19 restrictions, Henry Palmer completed a swim across the Santa Barbara Channel this week. Palmer finished the swim from Oxnard, Calif., to Anacapa Island in six and a half hours. He covered 14.3 miles in what was originally pl...

Malta Olympian Neil Agius has completed a swim from Sicily to Malta in a record-setting time this week. Agius departed from Punta Braccetto in Ragusa, Sicily in in the early morning hours of Thursday. He arrived in Balluta Bay in St. Julian’s at 9:21 am on Friday, a time of 28 hours, seven minutes a...