Sunday, July 19, 2009

Open Water Back On At Ostia

After an anxious 24 hours of uncertainty, the open water swimmers were informed today that the 5K, 10K and 25K world championship races will be held at Ostia Beach.

Despite talk of holding the races at Lac Bracciano, FINA announced this Sunday morning that the men's and women's 5K races are on Tuesday at Ostia Beach.

The local organizers are busy recovering from the damage caused by strong winds and heavy surf to hold the race within 48 hours.

Photos by Andrew Gemmell before (above) and after (left) the weather hit Rome show the devastation at Ostia Beach. We will cover the 5K races live at Twitter.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

that is awesome! GO AUSTRALIA!!!

Steven Munatones said...

In our opinion, this situation has MOST benefitted the Australian team because (1) they are really good at roughwater swimming and are probably the best body-surfing open water team at the world championships, and (2) they arrived only a few days ago and the additional 2 days gives them more time to recover from any jet lag.

Anonymous said...

I agree,
If I may make a prediction, It will be Lurz, Grimsey, Dyatchin as top 3 (any order). Crippen will be in the mix also.

Steven Munatones said...

Yes, Thomas Lurz is always in the mix and cannot be discounted. Very surprisingly, Vladimir Dyatchin did not qualify for the 10K at the Russian nationals, so he is probably a little less fit than usual, but he is always tough in flat or rough water. And, we know that Trent is fit and is a great ocean swimmer, so we cannot disagree with your predictions. Fran is also ready to go - as is Valerio Cleri who will be swimming in front of his home crowd - so it is going to be a great race.