While British Swimming is showcasing and highlighting its Olympic swimming heroes, including reigning world 10K marathon swimming champion Keri-Anne Payne, USA Swimming and Australia Swimming are similarly showcasing their pool and open water heroes, including Chloe Sutton and Melissa Gorman.

As Chloe says in her interview with Gold Medal Mel, “The US did not win any medals in the distance races this year and I want to bring that back.”

While Keri-Anne and Chloe both talk about their success in the pool and open water, reigning world 5K champion Melissa Gorman upped the ante by qualifying for both the pool and open water events for the competitive Australian national team. Melissa not only won several recent ocean races in South Africa after breaking the Australian 1500-meter freestyle time in 16:03.24 to win the Telstra Australian Swimming Championships in March.

It will certainly be a very competitive and telling summer season in the Northern Hemisphere with the several opportunities for racing fast face-to-face and shoulder-to-shoulder at the World Open Water Swimming Championships and at the Pan Pacific Swimming Championships that will include a 10K marathon race.

Copyright © 2010 by Steven Munatones