Posted in: Rules

English Channel - Safety Has to Win

20.Jul.09   |  posted by: steve munatones  |   filed under: Rules   |  (0) comments

Michael Oram, an inductee in the International Marathon Swimming Hall of Fame with hundreds of successful English Channel swims under his belt, gave these words of wisdom* to the Google Channel Swimmers Group:

"If you attempt to swim the English Channel swims, you can be risking death or serious injury."

"[Channel swimming] is a serious sport that should be treated with the greatest of respect. It is defiantly in the same category as Mount Everest and the many other extreme endurance sports that people try these days."

"Mount Everest has been climbed by about 3,800 people at the last count I saw - about three time more than those that have successfully swim the English Channel - and in half the number of years."

"The death rate [of Mount Everest] can be around 10% every year. You get what you pay for - the standard of your guides and organisers is optional as is the price. You should choose who you put your life expectance with carefully. Without the support backup the climber is nothing."

"Likewise in the English Channel, you rely on the organisation that is put together by volunteers and you swim under a tight set of rules. Your pilot and their team are the professionals you rely on to get you across safely - without them, the swimmer might just as well stay on the beach. For years now, the pilots have been tucked away in the shadows. We know our place and as pilots have a understanding of attitudes - if the swim is successful, it's down to the swimmer; if it's a failure, it's down to the pilot and the weather."

"We live with that, knowing that what we do to the best of our abilities and as safely and professionally as we can considering the environment we work in. Lack of preparation, egos and dreams are all part of the pitfalls that unprepared swimmers hit when they turn up at Dover and look at the cliffs of France on a sunny day."

"Channel swimming looks safe (from a distance) and safety comes first, second and third. The pilots and shore support are continually trying to keep things as safe as possible."

"This was the case [last week] by the way [a swimmer] was taken from the water and everything was put in place for speedy attention. [Another swimmer] made the extreme effort [last week] knowing what she was taking on, it was her second [attempt] and unfortunately, it ended a half mile from the [French] beach. Last year, Ros Hardiman did 24 hours and had to be taken out of the water 1,400 metres from the French shore."

"This is one of the world's top swim, if not the world's top swim. It is so because it is the combination of the tides, wind, sea conditions, water temperature, air temperature, the restriction of two land masses and the fact that it lies in the area of the polar front / jetstream effect. When all that is taken into effect, you add things like the movement of water between the Atlantic and the North Sea through a 18 nautical mile bottleneck, the weather patterns that run up the east coast of America and cross the Atlantic collecting moisture, a little bit of the warm air from the Azores high-pressure region and the temperature of the land mass of Europe."

"It's the pilot that has to draw the line between hope, expectation, success and safety. Safety always has to win."

FINA Open Water Swimming Congress

19.Jul.09   |  posted by: steve munatones  |   filed under: Rules   |  (0) comments

Sid Cassidy (second from left in photo) chaired the FINA Open WAter Swimming Technical Congress where the following four major decisions were discussed and approved:

1. In terms of officials, there will now be a Chief Referee (one per race), a Chief Judge and a Chief Finish Judge. The assignments for these three positions were defined in the rules.

The Chief Referee has the authority to intervene at any stage of the competition to ensure that the FINA rules are observed.

The Chief Judge shall record and communicate any decision received from the Referees during the competition.

2. Coaching and the giving of instructions by the approved swimmer's representatives on the feeding platform or in the escort safety craft are permitted.

3. From now on, all swimmers shall have their competition numbers clearly displayed in waterproof ink on their upper back, arms and hands.

4. When automatic timing system is being used, the microchip transponder technology must also provide split times during the race.

Referring Open Water Swimming

18.Jul.09   |  posted by: steve munatones  |   filed under: Rules   |  (1) comments

Dennis Miller of Fiji was the head referee of the women's Olympic 10K Marathon Swim. Ronnie Wong Man Chui of Hong Kong was the head referee for the men's race. What does a head referee do and why is the job so critical in the sport of open water swimming? Read on.


25 highly motivated, aggressive open water athletes will swim four 2.5K loops on the Olympic rowing course, fighting around 16 turn buoys, swimming in and out of feeding stations, and sprinting in a frantic rush to touch pads raised a few feet above the water.

If the race unfolds as expected, the 25 athletes will swim in a large tight pack, each close enough to not only rip the goggles right off the heads of each other, but also to snatch the gel packs from the swim suits of their rivals.

The 25 athletes have their own dreams and expectations: Dreams of Olympic gold...and expectations of getting hit, bumped, pulled, banged, elbowed, kneed, cut off, scratched, kicked, yanked and jostled throughout the race.

How do the head referees keep order in open water? How do they give fouls and give disqualifications while the athletes continue to swim?

At the Olympics, there will a head referee, two assistant referees, turn judges and feeding station judges on the floating pontoon. All officials will be in constant contact with one another via hand-held radios.

The head referee and the two assistant referees are positioned in boats along the course and work hand-in-hand with their boat drivers who navigate as closely as possible to the swimmers, without creating a wake.

The head referee positions himself close to the second and third swimmers in the lead pack and makes himself visible to everyone in the lead pack by intensely watching the swimmers for the entire 2-hour race from the bow of his boat.

The assistant referee positions himself further back in the lead pack in a separate boat, constantly watching for rule infractions. Because the first 2-3 loops of the 4-loop 10K race will probably include all 25 entrants at the Olympics in one large tightly bound pack, you will see 2 referee boats positioned only a few meters from the entire pack - the head referee towards the front, and the assistant referee towards the back.

What are the possible infractions?

Under the general unsportsmanlike rule, athletes can be disqualified for making intentional contact, obstruction or interference with another swimmer. Such unsportsmanlike conduct is judged solely by the head referee.

But with swimmers constantly bumping each other, the referee's key consideration is if the contact was intentional or not. A very high majority of the occurrences are simply unintentional instances of contact that do not require intervention by the referees and are an integral part of the sport.

On the other hand, when swimmers are swimming too aggressively, the referees quickly become pro-active and try to mitigate further escalation of inappropriate physical altercations among the swimmers.

Warning whistles and directives given by hand motions are repeatedly used by the referees. For example, when three swimmers are swimming together and the two outside swimmers start to squeeze the middle swimmer, the referee will blow his whistle and give hand signals to instruct the two outside swimmers to separate and give the middle swimmer some room. On the other hand, if swimmers lock arms while swimming stroke for stroke or run into each other during the crush around the turn buoys, the referee generally judges this contact to be unintentional.

While most physical contact among the swimmers is viewed as accidental or part of the sport, there is a subjective element that is entirely dependent upon the referee's experience and perspective.

Can athletes be disqualified?

In general, whistle warnings are given fairly frequently throughout the race - perhaps 2-4 times per loop during a relatively "clean" race and 5-10 times per loop during a more aggressive race.

At the first rule infraction when the referee judges contact to be intentional and unsportsmanlike, the head referee shows a yellow flag to the swimmer(s) with a card bearing the swimmer's number. This number is written with black markers on their shoulders, shoulder blades and back of hands for identification purposes.

On the second infringement, the swimmers are shown a red flag and a card bearing their number, and they can be asked to immediately leave the water.

So what kind of race happened at the Olympics?

It was an extremely tactical and close race, both among the men and women, carefully monitored by Dennis Miller and Ronnie Wong and their teams, whistles, yellow cards and red cards added to the race...that both came down to exciting finishes.

Photo by Dr. Jim Miller of the start at the 2003 World Swimming Championships 5K race.

Yellow Cards in Open Water Swimming

13.Jul.09   |  posted by: steve munatones  |   filed under: Rules   |  (0) comments

During the USA Swimming National 10K Championship, the FINA Technical Open Water Swimming Committee chairman, Sid Cassidy, was the head referee and was caught on tape giving a yellow flag to one of the swimmers for impeding another competitor.

The process of blowing a whistle, giving hand signals to the athletes, writing the swimmer’s number on the white board and reporting the infraction to the Chief Referee is rarely seen from shore or by spectators. However, the entire process can be seen in this short race video off the coast of Ft. Myers, Florida.  Go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eu0qUtfbJy4 to watch this rarely seen issuance of a yellow flag in a major US domestic open water swimming competition.

A Gold-Medal Finish in the Red Sea

5.Jul.09   |  posted by: steve munatones  |   filed under: Rules   |  (0) comments

British 1500-meter Olympian Richard Charlesworth won the 10K race in the Red Sea in Eilat, Israel at the first LEN Open Water Swimming Cup this 2009 season in a typically close race, winning by 0.2 seconds over Brian Ryckeman of Belgium. The top four men finished within 1.05 seconds of one another.

"It was the speed from the last buoy that really made the differance. I was fourth with about 70 meters to go. It was a relatively slow paced race."

"It was quite choppy for about 400 meters of each lap and we did end up going off course once or twice," said Richard who was elated that he qualified for the 2009 World Swimming Championships in both the 5K and 1500-meter freestyle.

A Struggle Upstream and a Joy Downstream the Blackwater River

4.Jul.09   |  posted by: steve munatones  |   filed under: Rules   |  (0) comments

Over 40 open water swimmers competed in the 2K, 4K and 6K swims in the Blackwater River, Fermoy, County Cork in Ireland on June 6th.


The course was a stuggle up the Blackwater River as the swimmers swam against the current on the left-hand side of the river in the first half of the course. But, once around a turn buoy, the swimmers flew back down the middle of the river.

It typically took three times as long to swim upstream against the current as it did to swim downstream with the current - a struggle and a joy every open water swimmer can greatly appreciated.

 Photos courtesy of Ned Denison.

Handing Out Yellow Cards

4.Jul.09   |  posted by: steve munatones  |   filed under: Rules   |  (0) comments

Yellow flag or yellow card is frequently used in highly competitive international FINA open water swimming competitions.  When there is an infraction of the rules, the referee is give out a yellow card.  In this case, the referee holds up a yellow-colored penalty card or flag from the escort boat in close proximity to the swimmers.  In addition, the official race number of the swimmer is written on a white boat so the swimmer can know what swimmer caused the infraction.  The issuance of a yellow card indicates to the swimmers and officials that an official warning to a swimmer was given due to unsportsmanlike conduct or an infraction of the rules during the open water race. 

This information is excerpted from the Open Water Swimming Dictionary (2009 English version).

Newly Approved FINA Swimsuit List

22.Jun.09   |  posted by: open water admin  |   filed under: Rules   |  (0) comments

Under the interim regulations of the Dubai Charter, FINA announced today its approval of dozens of additional swimsuit models from 20 different manufacturers. The announcement will lead to follow-up announcements by national governing bodies and some quick decisions by swimmers worldwide.

The manufacturers included Adidas, Arena, Asics, blueseventy, Descente, Diana Sport, Essenuoto, Footmark, Jaked, Kiwami, Leonian, Mizuno, Mosconi, Okeo, Orca, Aquazone, Speedo, Sports Hig, TYR and Yamamotohokosyo.

The full FINA approved swimsuit list can be seen here.

Dozens of technical swimsuits were resubmitted - with modifications - to FINA and its Swimsuit Commission after the first group of swimsuits were approved in May. According to FINA, in some cases, the manufacturers submitted explanations why the construction or material of their swimsuits does not create air trapping effects.

FINA determined that evidence of 'in use' air trapping effect is complex, requiring additional time and resources to create and implement comprehensive control mechanisms and objective test procedures to review the air trapping effects.

The approved swimsuits for the FINA World Swimming Championships in Rome from July 17th to August 2nd must be labelled and will be checked in Rome prior to competition. The rules regarding shape, use of only one swimsuit and no taping will be strictly applied and controlled in the call room before all pool swimming and open water swimming events.

We only wonder what swimsuits - and training equipment - the next generation of swimmers and coaches will employ in their pursuit of swimming better.

LEN And USA Swimming Adopt FINA List

2.Jun.09   |  posted by: open water admin  |   filed under: Products & Equipment  Rules   |  (0) comments

Last week in Israel, LEN adopted and enforced FINA's new approved swimsuit list at the first major international open water swimming competition held after the May 19th FINA ruling. Bruce Stratton, Chairman of USA Swimming's Rules & Regulations Committee, issued the following rule regarding this issue:

On May 19, 2009, FINA issued a list of swimsuits approved for competition. The approved list, which was effective immediately and is attached, includes 202 swimsuits. The Rules and Regulations Committee, under the provisions of Article 511.1, has the authority to alter or amend any provision of Part One of our rules to conform to the rules of FINA. Accordingly, effective immediately, Article 102.9 is amended as follows:

102.9.1A: Only swimwear approved by FINA, as reflected on its published list of approved swimwear, may be worn in any USA Swimming sanctioned or approved competition.

Since the FINA approved list only addressed new model swimsuits submitted by swimsuit manufacturers, swimmers will, until otherwise directed by FINA, also be able to wear traditional swimsuits not on the FINA approved list as long as the swimsuit meets the following criteria:

1. For female swimmers, the swimsuit shall not cover the neck, extend past the shoulders or past the pelvis, and

2. For male swimmers, the swimsuit shall not extend above the navel or below the knees.

In addition to the 202 approved swimsuits on the attached FINA list, there were an additional 136 swimsuits that could be resubmitted to FINA for reconsideration and possible approval. The expected decision date for such approval is June 19, 2009. At such time as FINA publishes any list of additional swimsuits approved for competition, those additional swimsuits will also be approved for USA Swimming sanctioned or approved competitions.

FINA has also declared that only those permitted swimsuit models that are available to all World Championship competitors may be used at the FINA 2009 World Championships in Rome. To be consistent with this FINA requirement, only those permitted swimsuit models that are available to all competitors may be used at the 2009 ConocoPhillips USA Swimming National Championships and World Championship Trials to be held July 7-11, 2009, or at the 2009 USA Swimming Open Water World Championship Trials to be held June 14, 2009. To avoid confusion, availability is defined as follows:

1. The swimsuit manufacturer is present at the 2009 ConocoPhillips USA Swimming National Championships and World Championship Trials and/or USA Swimming Open Water World Championship Trials with its approved swimsuits available for all competitors on a purchase, loan, give-away or other basis, or

2. The swimsuit manufacturer has provided to USA Swimming a written representation in the form requested by USA Swimming that its approved swimsuit will be made available before July 7, 2009 to all World Championship Trials competitors and before June 14, 2009 to all Open Water Championship Trials competitors on a purchase, loan, or giveaway basis through retail stores, the internet, or other means. USA Swimming will publish a list of swimsuit manufacturers who have made this representation once they are received. Competitors may rely on this list as approval to wear a particular swimsuit model at either of the World Championship Trials.

As a result of the ruling, it was reported that most of the open water swimmers wore Speedo LZR's or Speedo Fastskin models at the LEN Open Water Swimming Cup. With only a few weeks before the USA Swimming and Swimming Canada joint World Open Water Championship Trials in Ft. Myers, Florida, we suspect many of the American and Canadian swimmers will make similarly choices.

Photo of men's start at the Olympic 10K Marathon Swim by Pei Qingsheng.