Craig Lord Breaks Major Story On David Davies

The world's leading swimming journalist Craig Lord wrote today that David Davies, the silver medalist in the Beijing Olympic 10K Marathon Swim will not swim any open water races at the upcoming World Swimming Championships in Rome.

Craig broke the story that David will focus on improving his 400-meter pace this summer in order to become more competitive in the 1500-meter freestyle - and a decision on open water swimming can be made later.


This certainly changes the strategy of Rome's 10K race because David singlehandedly influenced the pace and made everyone adapt to his strategy at both the 2008 World Open Water Swimming Championships in Sevilla, Spain and the Olympic 10K Marathon Swim in Beijing, the only two major open water swims of his promising young open water swimming career.

We believe his absence in the Rome 10K may lead to an even more tactical race because the pace will undoubtedly be slower and more strategic positioning will be necessary especially given the shape of the open water venues in Rome.

Because the 10K race in Rome is five days before the 400-meter freestyle and ten days before the 1,500-meter freestyle, David said: "It wasn't an easy or quick decision to make. It was my decision alone after speaking with Kevin and Mark Perry [performance head of Britain's open water program]. I've changed a lot of things this year, the aim being to get quicker and sronger.

I wanted to check my progress on that but if I do a 10K a week before the pool in Rome, it won't be a proper check, a true test."

As Craig reported, David's coach Kevin Renshaw explained, "Really, open water this year is just to gain experience. We revisited the plan and while Rome was on the list, we feel that he's got enough FINA world cup races after the world champiopnships. We're really excited about the progress he's made on speed and power, and that's been the priority."

David has competed in an earlier FINA 10KM Marathon Swimming World Cup in Santos, Brazil in January where he finished out of the money (literally as he placed 27th out of 31 swimmers), but time is still very much on his side, "I'm still ticking the boxes on learning the ropes in open water, and ticking boxes on improving my speed and strength.

The big decision will be taken after the Commonwealth Games when it comes down to what to go for in London 2012."

With Olympic 1500-meter gold medalist Oussama Mellouli and Korean Olympic 400-meter gold medalist Park Tae Hwan training hard together at USC under the watchful helm of renowned coach Dave Salo, there will be great races in the 400-meter and 1500-meter freestyles in Rome.

But, it is our expectation that David will get back into open water swimming soon enough and will aggressively take his customary role in the front of the pack, pushing the pace and challenging all those behind him to keep up.

Long-Distance Olympian Speed

We were fortunate to witness a great pool workout between the Korean Olympic 400-meter gold medalist Park Tae Hwan and the Tunisian Olympic 1500-meter gold medalist Oussama Mellouli at USC.

Although we have talked about pool training programs of elite open water swimmers, from Maarten van der Weijden to Mark Warkentin, Park and Mellouli, who does open water events like the RCP Tiburon Mile, were really pushing each other in a long-distance workout.

Under the direction of Trojan Swim Club coach Dave Salo, Park and Mellouli did a long series of 75-yard sprints on 45 seconds followed by a set of fast 100’s and 200’s. The speed that they were swimming was incredible: between 39-42 seconds on the 75-yard swims and finishing with a 51 seconds on the final 100.

Whether it is in the pool or open water, observing great athletes performing incredible long-distance feats is something to behold.

Photo of Park by Adam Pretty of Getty Images.

Long-Distance Training Showdown at USC

We have talked about various pool training programs of Olympic heroes, from Maarten van der Weijden to Mark Warkentin. These swimmers have very specific training regimens and consistently performed at high levels while training – which helped make them great.

But, there is going to be a very special long-distance training program going on at USC in Los Angeles over the winter. The Olympic 400-meter freestyle gold medalist, Park Tae Hwan of Korea, will be visiting USC to train under renowned coach Dave Salo in January and February. 18-year-old Park gave Korea its first Olympic swimming gold medal in Beijing and immediately became Korea's most marketable athlete. Park will be training with the Trojan Swim Club and battling it out every day with Olympic 1500-meter gold medalist Oussama Mellouli of Tunisia for six weeks in early 2009.

Oussama Mellouli, who occasionally swims open water events like the RCP Tiburon Mile, is a ferocious workout swimmer and is looking to swim a 14:30 in the 1500-meter freestyle. Recently, Mellouli has been on a roll of the FINA World Cup circuit.

Watching these two swimmers battle it out under Coach Salo’s high-quality training program will be something special to see. Back-and-forth, up and down the pool, goggle-to-goggle, the two men will be putting on a show that only a few fellow Trojan Swim Club teammates will be able to see.

Photo of Park by Adam Pretty of Getty Images.

Copyright © 2008 by World Open Water Swimming Association

Tiburon on TV on Thanksgiving

Comcast SportsNet Bay Area will broadcast the 2008 RCP Tiburon Mile four separate times in November and December.

The first broadcast of this annual event will be at 7 pm PT on Thursday, November 27, 2008. The other three broadcasts will be on Monday, December 1st at 6 pm PT, on Tuesday, December 9th at 6:30 pm PT and on Sunday, December 14th at 5 pm PT.

If your household gets the Comcast SportsNet Bay Area signal, do not miss this exciting open water swimming broadcast where Trent Grimsey of Australia took a gamble and surprised an amazing field of Olympic and world champions at the 9th annual RCP Tiburon Mile.

The broadcast will show how Grimsey swam all by himself, far to the left of the main pack, but still won by 14 seconds over Olympic 10K bronze medalist Thomas Lurz, multi-time world open water champion Vladimir Dyatchin of Russia, Brendan Capell of Australia and 2008 Olympic 1500-meter gold medalist Oussama Mellouli.

The Comcast broadcast (see below) will showcase 800+ other swimmers who ventured across the 1.2-mile channel from Angel Island to the City of Tiburon just north of the Golden Gate Bridge. Footage will capture how the lead pack with Lurz, Dyatchin, Capell and Mellouli were all jostling with each other, but they couldn’t chase down the lone Grimsey.

The women's race was equally compelling, but the lead women were much closer to one another. "I could see all my competitors and knew where they were," said world 25K open water champion Britta Kamrau. Kamrau reached the shoreline together with two-time world open water silver medalist Ekaterina Seliverstova of Russia. As they both ran up the beach, Kamrau was just a step ahead. “I am not good at running and I have never done a race where there is a run at the finish. I just put one step ahead of the other and beat [Seliverstova].”



Kirsten Groome of Louisiana and Luane Rowe of Sydney followed closely behind the top two women to take third and fourth respectively.

The top 25 overall swimmers are as follows:

1. Trent Grimsey in 20:31
2. Thomas Lurz in 20:45
3. Vladimir Dyatchin in 20:46
4. Brendan Capell in 20:47
5. Oussama Mellouli in 20:52
6. Andrew Beato in 21:14
7. Charles Cullom in 21:16
8. John K. Koehler in 21:37
9. Charles Peterson in 21:44
10. Aljaz Ojstersek in 21:46
11. Britt Kamrau in 21:48 [first woman]
12. Ekaterina Seliverstova in 21:49 [second woman]
13. Kirsten Groome in 21:54 [third woman]
14. Luane Rowe in 21:57 [fourth woman]
15. Alex Kostich in 21:59
16. Eva Fabian in 22:00 [fifth woman]
17. Dawn Heckman in 22:00 [sixth woman]
18. Chloe Sutton in 22:01 [seventh woman]
19. Noa Sakamoto in 22:09
20. Charlie Rimkus in 22:09
21. Steffan Troxel in 22:10
22. Sergiy Fesenko in 22:30
23. Angela Duckworth in 22:34
24. Erik Vendt in 22:37
25. John Flanagan in 22:39

Bob Placak is the founder of the RCP Tiburon Mile and a nominee for the 2008 World Open Water Swimming Man of the Year.

Photo copyright by Elliott. Used by permission. Photo shows the different colored caps of the elite swimmers.

A Mile in the Bay and Another Down Under

Oussama Mellouli, the Olympic 1500-meter gold medalist from Tunisia and USC, will have a busy October.

On October 5th in San Francisco, Mellouli will participate in the RCP Tiburon Mile and then will fly over to Australia to compete in the Sydney World Cup meet on October 25th and 26th.

Mellouli swam a great Olympic final to upset 2-time Olympic champion Grant Hackett with the third-fastest time ever swum in 14:40.84.

In the RCP Tiburon Mile, Mellouli will be similarly chased by open water swimming world champion Thomas Lurz of Germany and other open water swimming stars, including Chip Peterson, Fran Crippen and Russian 2008 10K world champion Vladimir Dyatchin. Eric Vendt is also expected to be in the mix.

The women's race should also be equally as exciting with 2-time defending champion Chloe Sutton facing a slew of pool and open water swimming stars very motivated to capture the $10,000 winner-take-all cash prize.

Photo of Mellouli by Getty Images after his 800-meter freestyle gold medal performance at the 2007 World Swimming Championships.