Friends of Open Water

Several individuals with strong open water swimming ties populate the recently announced FINA Committees, Commissions and Panels:

• Paulo Frischknecht of Portugal (shown on left), Dennis Miller of Fiji and Coaracy Nunes Filho of Brazil are members of the 22-member FINA Bureau
• Coaracy Nunes Filho is also the Vice Chairman of the Legal Commission

• Dr. Jim Miller is a member of the Sports Medicine Committee.
• Pierre Lafontaine of Canada is a member of the Coaches Commission while Paulo Frischknecht of Portugal is its FINA Bureau Liaison.
• Petar Stoychev of Bulgaria is on the Athletes Committee along with a host of other Olympic pool swimming heroes.

Also, the FINA list of open water swimming officials commissioned until 2012 are posted here. The FINA list of open water swimming officials commissioned until 2010 are posted here.

Photo of Paulo Frischknecht by Aqualoja.

Open Water Friends In High Places

On July 24, FINA held its General Congress in Rome during the 2009 World Swimming Championships. A global election was held among its 201 member federations and Dr. Julio Maglione of Uruguay was elected president. Paola Barelli of Italy was elected as Honorary Secretary and Pipat Paniangvait of Thailand was elected as Honorary Treasurer.

The five FINA Vice Presidents include Sam Ramsamy of South Africa, Dale Neuburger of the USA, Hironoshin Furuhashi of Japan, Nory Kruchten of Luxembourg and Bill Matson of New Zealand.

Among the 14 FINA Bureau members, we know of three members who are very knowledgeable and strong supporters of open water swimming: Coaracy Nunes Filho of Brazil, Paulo Frischknecht of Portugal and Dennis Miller of Fiji (shown above). Like the rest of their FINA colleagues, these gentlemen have spent decades in the sport working, leading and volunteering in a variety of roles with a multitude of responsibilities.