Courtesy of USA Swimming, Irvine, California.

As multiple world and Olympic champion Katie Ledecky started swimming at world record pace in today’s 800m freestyle at the 2018 USA Swimming Championships in Irvine, California and finished in 8:11.98 to win, open water swimmers were well-represented in the finals.

Haley Anderson finished third in 8:24.13 with Erica Sullivan 5th in 8:26.98, and Ashley Twichell 7th in 8:32.01.

On the men’s side, 3 of the top 5 1500m finishers are also open water swimmers. Jordan Wilimovsky won in 14:48.89 with 18-year-old Robert Finke second in 14:55.34 and True Sweetser in fifth in 15:10.65.

“That kind of flat speed is going to be necessary to be successful in the 2020 Tokyo quadrennial,” opined Steven Munatones. “With the 2020 Tokyo Olympics 10 km marathon race being in a warm, flat-water, easy-to-navigate rectangular course, it is basically a 10,000 meter swim without flip turns and with a whole lot of drafting and positioning in the pack. Tokyo 2020 will be a very simple course – like Beijing 2008.”

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