Give Her An Inch And She Takes A Mile

Britta Kamrau took a slight lead over three Olympic 10K medalists and won the 1-mile Great Scottish Swim in 18:56 seconds. Larisa Ilchenko was second in 18:58 and Keri-Anne Payne was third in 19:01.

Daniil Serebrennikov of Russia, Jan Wolfgarten of Germany and David Carry of Scotland finished 1-2-3 on the men's side.

Britta's victory over a tough field in Scotland should give her a lot of confidence heading into the RCP Tiburon Mile in San Francisco to be held on September 13th.

Rowdy Gaines and John Naber give a tune-up to the 2008 RCP Tiburon Mile, site of Britta's US$10,000 winner-take-all victory:

Great Scott! A Rematch Of Beijing

Andy Caine of Nova International announced the elite field for this weekend's Great Scottish Swim that will pit the Olympic 10K Marathon Swim gold medalist (Larisa Ilchenko) vs. the silver medalist (Keri-Anne Payne) vs. the bronze medalist (Cassandra Patten) in what may be another down-to-the-wire rematch of their epic 10K battle in Beijing.

Copyright © 2009 by World Open Water Swimming Association

Fun-filled Foursome Of Fun

East, west, north and south...the sport continues to boom throughout the British Isles.

The first in a series of four Great Swims, the Great London Swim, will be held on August 15th at the Royal Victoria Dock in London.

2009 world 10K champion Keri-Anne Payne, 10K bronze medalist Cassandra Patten and and Olympic 10K silver medalist David Davies will headline the elite athletes while thousands of others from every age and ability will also participate.

The next races include Great Scottish Swim in Glasgow on August 29th, the Great North Swim in Lake Windermere on September 12-13th and the Great East Swim in Suffolk on September 26th.

The elite athletes - both male and female - will be racing for the £1,000 first prize, £750 second prize, £500 third prize, £250 fourth prize and the £150 fifth prize.

Mile After Mile

Inches...feet...yards...pounds...quarts... while the world used metric measurements, a handful of countries still use the imperical units of measurements: UK, US, Myanmar and Liberia.

Although 1K, 2K, 5K, 10K and 25K races are popular the world over in open water swimming, mile (1.6K) swims are gaining popularity.

These one-mile races include the RCP Tiburon Mile in San Francisco Bay, the new Pagganck Mile that will be part of the Governor's Island Swim Weekend in New York City, and the Great Swim Series that includes Great London Swim, the Great Scottish Swim, the Great North Swim and the Great East Swim.

This Monday morning in California, there is also the Millerton Mile that serves as the 2009 US Masters Swimming 1-mile national championship. Mike Shaffer, 43 of Ventura County Masters, and Jeff Erwin, 44 of Idaho's Sawtooth Masters (shown on left), who both dominated the distance freestyle events in the pool national masters championships are expected to be the class of the field in the Millerton Lake.

Photo of the start of the 1-mile Pacific Open Water Challenge in California by Bob Maguglin.

Great Swim Series in the UK

The 2009 Great Swim Series includes the four events, all 1-mile televised open water swimming events for people of all ages and abilities.

The events will include Olympic medalists and celebrities.

1. Great London Swim at the Royal Victoria Docks in London on the August 15-16.
2. Great Scottish Swim in Strathclyde Park on August 29-30.
3. Great North Swim in Lake Windermere on September 12-13 [note: already sold out]
4. Great East Swim in Ipswich Alton Water on September 26-27

Further updates on the Great Channel Swim will be forthcoming.