Images courtesy of NBCOlympics.com, Copacabana Beach, Rio de Janeiro.

FINA and Olympic open water swims start either in the water behind a rope or on a floating pontoon where the athletes dive into the water.

Perhaps because we grew up in Southern California where ocean swimming races start and finish on white sand beaches and athletes have to run into the water, we still love onshore starts. They are still dramatic and exciting to us, although many people in the open water swimming world dislike such onshore starts and want to avoid any kind of running in or out of the water.

We really liked the start of today’s Olympic sprint triathlon on Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro where British brothers Alistair Brownlee and Jonathan Brownlee finished 1-2.

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