Sunday, September 7, 2008

A Smooth, Cool and Memorable Big Shoulders 2008


Courtesy of WOWSA, Huntington Beach, California.

Unlike Hurricane Hanna's cancellation of the Brooklyn Bridge Swim, Hurricane Gustav only caused a water temperature drop at the Big Shoulders 2.5K and 5K Swims on Saturday.

Under a gorgeous fall morning, 410 swimmers completed the 5 km swim and 193 swimmers entered the 2.5 km race in Lake Michigan. Although Hurricane Gustav lowered the water temperature by 10°F, the lakefront was relatively calm and showcased the skills of Northwestern's Eric Nilsson who won the 5K in 56:38, followed by Washington D.C.'s Steuart Martens at 57:21, and Mike Alexandrov at 57:24. 1998 world 5 km champion and fellow Northwestern Wildcat Erica Rose led the women's field with a time of 1:01:13, followed by Indy Swimfit's Victoria Rian at 1:02:50 and Kelly Perry at 1:04:19.

Former King of the Channel Michael Read also competed as well as the ever-present Bill Ireland of Southern California who competed in race from Fiji to Alcatraz to Chicago on a one-man world open water swimming tour.

Photo of Erica Rose by TYR.

Copyright © 2008 by World Open Water Swimming Association

2 comments:

Harriet said...

I swam in that; the conditions were as calm as I had ever seen them. The day could not have been better.

As far as the winning times go: they would have been even faster had the first wave swimmers left when the clock started. There was about a 10-15 second gap between the clock starting and the swimmers actually leaving!

The problem is that the start was announced from the beach, which was about, say, 50-100 meters away from the in water start.

Steven Munatones said...

Thank you very much. If you have any photos, please send them so we can post for others to see.