If you were the ultimate decision-maker in the global open water swimming world with unlimited power and unilateral authority, what kind of changes, additions, and decisions would you do? These changes suit my own version of an open water swimming utopia:

• add a 5 km solo race and a mixed 4-person relay to the Summer Olympic Games
• require the Olympic 10K Marathon Swim to be a point-to-point race where possible
• add a 1 km ice swimming event in a 25m pool to the Winter Olympic Games
• educate, develop, and require referees to officiate at every open water swimming competition
• educate, develop, and require announcers to offer play-by-play coverage at every open water swimming competition
• develop camera systems to take underwater footage at major open water swimming competitions
• require the same swimwear and non-use of GPS as was true in the Greta Andersen/Abou Heif era in the 1950’s and 1960’s
• charge a US$1 or €1 fee to every open water swimming registration at every event to create a global fund to create and produce open water swimming documentary films, overseen by a 7-member board of established open water swimmers who are knowledgeable in the field of storytelling and film making
• charge a US$5 or €5 fee to every open water swimming registration at every event to create a global fund to educate and protect the world’s oceans, overseen by a 7-member board of established open water swimmers who are knowledgeable and dedicated in the field of marine environmentalism
• require every channel and marathon swimmer to serve at least once on an escort team or support crew for other swimmers
• hire a multi-lingual team of ghost writers to write the biographies of swimmers with interesting life stories
• offer a team of experienced consultants to help open water swimmers fine-tune and develop their motivational speaking abilities and TED Talks
• further promote and develop opportunities for the physically and intellectually disabled individuals to participate in various open water swimming disciplines
• create a World Ocean Championships where free divers, surfers, ocean swimmers, kite surfers, wind surfers, kayakers, paddleboarders, rowing/outrigger paddling, sailors, and bodysurfers can come together
• utilize the World Ocean Championships to establish marine environmental coalitions that bring together the various constituencies, organizations, goals, and people who wish to protect and improve the world’s marine environments
• create and sell the same type of swimsuits as used by Captain Matthew Webb when he crossed the English Channel in 1875
• create a World Urban River Series where swimmers can compete in fast-flowing rivers around city centers
• allow a transponder to be used that enables heart rate data to be collected on open water swimmers in ice swimming competitions, marathon swimming races, and channel crossings
• create an app that gives valuable information on water temperatures, course distances, and conditions forecast (wind speed, wind direction, and wave height) for every known open water swimming venue; perhaps by a cumulative aggregation of data from swimmers’ Garmin and Apple Watches and other digital information
• establish an International Open Water Swimming Museum that showcases every discipline of the open water swimming community: marathon, channel, ice, winter, stage, high-altitude, relay, adventure, mass participation, free swimming, wild swimming
• establish Centers of Excellence that serve as training and educational venues with research facilities and staff (to study nutrition, dryland training, stroke technique, marine life) on every continent to focus on different disciplines: warm-water swimming, cold-water swimming, competitive swimming, and offer annual conferences and monthly seminars
• develop additional escort pilots for every major channel crossing around the world
• establish a Billion Dollar Fund to subsidize every channel crossing around the world to cost no more than US$1,000
• create Pool Open Water swimming competitions in major facilities from Las Vegas to London
• create swim caps with magnetic and sonar/GPS capabilities so the caps magnetically attach to human hair or hair follicles of those with shaven or bald heads and would no longer fall or slip off and could always locate the precise position of a swimmer in the open water
• create an investigation body that would independently and objectively study every accident and death in the open water swimming world so global recommendations and information sharing could elevate safety in the sport
• create a global database of DNF (Did Not Finish) crossings and attempts with the goal to learn and document the reasons for these outcomes

Photos of Lewis Pugh, United Nations Patron of the Oceans

© Daily News of Open Water Swimming

“to educate, enthuse, and entertain all those who venture beyond the shoreline“