USA Swimming announced the men’s and women’s field for the 10K marathon swim on August 22nd at the Pan Pacific Swimming Championships in Marine Stadium, Long Beach. There were numerous surprises:
1. Olympian open water swimmer Kristel Kobrich of Chile will swim the pool events, but not the 10K.
2. Melissa Gorman, Emily Brunemann, Chloe Sutton, Yumi Kida, Haley Anderson, Danielle Defrancesco will swim the 800- and 1500-meter freestyles in addition to their showdown in the 10K.
3. Ous Mellouli (shown above), Chad La Tourette, Sean Ryan and Arthur Frayler are entered in both the 1500-meter freestyle on Day 1 of the championships and the 800-meter freestyle the day before the 10K. Ous, as the reigning gold medalist and dominant 1500-meter freestyler in the world with open water swimming experience in the RCP Tiburon Mile, will be entering in his first 10K swim. If he does well, will he try for a double-gold in 2012?
4. Chad, as the fastest 1500-meter freestyler in America, will be entering in his first open water swim since taking fourth place in the 5K at the 2008 world open water swimming championships. Although Chad is focusing on the pool, could this be a precursor to his return to the open water where his potential is gold medal’ish.
It is going to be quite a race on both the women’s and men’s side – and perhaps precursor to races at the 2011 World Swimming Championships in Shanghai and the 2012 London Olympics:
1. Yumi Kida, Japan
2. Cara Baker, New Zealand
3. Melissa Gorman, Australia
4. Danielle Defrancesco, Australia
5. Stacey Hansford, Australia
6. Samantha Hoschke-Edwards, Australia
7. Poliana Okimoto, Brazil
8. Zsofia Balazs, Canada
9. Nadine Williams, Canada
10. Haley Anderson, USA
11. Emily Brunemann, USA
12. Christine Jennings, USA
13. Chloe Sutton, USA
14. Eva Fabian, USA
1. George O’Brien, Australia
2. Christopher Ashwood, Australia
3. Rhys Mainstone, Australia
4. David Browne, Australia
5. Ivan Enderica, Ecuador
6. Allan Do Carmo, Brazil
7. Ous Mellouli, Tunisia
8. Aimeson King, Canada
9. Richard Weinberger, Canada
10. Fran Crippen, USA
11. Andrew Gemmell, USA
12. Alex Meyer, USA
13. Sean Ryan, USA
14. Chad La Tourette, USA
15. Arthur Frayler, USA
16. Chip Peterson, USA
Copyright © 2010 by Open Water Source