Courtesy of WOWSA, Huntington Beach, California.
Jordan Wilimovsky, the defending 10 km world champion and pre-race gold medal favorite in the 2016 Olympic 10K Marathon Swim, is leaving a huge void at the upcoming 2016 USA Swimming National Open Water Swimming Championships next week in Florida.
But the void will be quickly filled by an outstanding field.
Arguably the finest and fastest group of open water swimmers ever to compete in America, the lead pack will include Olympic medal favorites include Brazilian’s Allan Do Carmo (BRA), Tunisia’s Oussama Mellouli, the Netherland’s Ferry Weertman [shown above], Canada’s Richard Weinberger, and France’s Marc-Antione Olivier.
But America’s Arthur Frayler, world championship medalist Andrew Gemmell, David Heron, 2012 Olympian Alex Meyer, Daniel O’Connor, Joey Pedraza, Chip Peterson, and 2016 Olympian Sean Ryan will also push the pace.
The lead pack should be large throughout most of the races with a very strong contingent from Japan (Yasunari Hirai), Bahamas (Matthew Lowe, Australia (Jarrod Poort), and New Zealand (Kane Radford) who will go head-to-head with the Olympians in the Fort Myers, Florida warm flat-water course.
It will be quite a race on Miromar Lakes on April 8th – even without defending champion Wilimovsky participating. If there was ever a pre-race showdown for the 2016 Olympic 10K Marathon Swim at the Rio Olympics, this is it.
2016 10 km Marathon Swim Field:
Taylor Abbott (USA)
Aaron Apel (USA)
Michael Brinegar (USA)
Brendan Casey (USA)
Anis Cheniti (FRA)
Michael Craddock (USA)
Taylor Delk (USA)
Allan Do Carmo (BRA)
Robert Finke (USA)
Arthur Frayler (USA)
Andrew Gemmell (USA)
Rafeal Gil (POR)
Carter Grimes (USA)
Lozano Gutierrez (PER)
David Heron (USA)
Yasunari Hirai (JPN)
Dallin Johnson (USA)
Jerad Kaskawal (USA)
Simon Lamar (USA)
Ben Lawless (USA)
Matthew Lowe (BAH)
Blake Mangeniello (USA)
Nicholas McDowell (USA)
Oussama Mellouli (TUN)
Alex Meyer (USA)
Riley Molina (USA)
Daniel O’Connor (USA)
Marc-Antione Olivier (FRA)
Jacob Ores (USA)
Joey Pedraza (USA)
Chip Peterson (USA)
Jarrod Poort (AUS)
Kane Radford (NZL)
Logan Redondo (USA)
Sam Rice (USA)
Colin Rockwell (USA)
Sean Ryan (USA)
Marcel Schouten (NED)
Steve Sholdra (USA)
T.C. Smith (USA)
Cameron Stitt (USA)
Michal Szuba (POL)
Ferry Weertman (NED)
Richard Weinberger (CAN)
The 10 km national championships are on April 8th. The women’s race starts at 8 am followed by the men at 10:30 am. The 5 km championships are held on April 10th. A live webcast of each race will be available online via usaswimming.org.
Copyright © 2016 by World Open Water Swimming Association