Courtesy of WOWSA, Huntington Beach, California. Yasunari Hirai finished within 5 seconds of the gold medalist in the 2016 Olympic 10K Marathon Swim in Copacabana Beach at the 2016 Rio Olympics. Ferry Weertman won gold in 1:52:59.8 versus Hirai who was closing very fast in 1:53:04.6. The two-time Japanese marathon swimmer is very comfortable in […]

Courtesy of WOWSA, Huntington Beach, California. Olympic medalist Martina “Grimmy” Grimaldi and Davy Billiau celebrate the nickname of Olympic swimmer Yasunari Hirai. Below is a small sampling of nicknames of a number of open water swimmers: Yasu: Yasunari Hirai (Japan) The Unstoppable Turtle: Robbie Hudson (UK) Lala: Tipalelupe Lala Toatasi Tu`ua (New Zealand) Chappie: Johnny

Courtesy of WOWSA, Huntington Beach, California. Professional marathon swimmers balance their training cycles around their national and international competitions. Japan’s Yasunari Hirai, a Brand Ambassador at Mizuno, has quite the international schedule: Hong Kong, China, Brazil, Hungary, Portugal, U.S.A., United Arab Emirates, Australia, Russia, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, in addition to training in Thailand, Japan,

Courtesy of WOWSA, Huntington Beach, California. Many of the young athletes on the FINA 10K Marathon Swimming World Cup and FINA Open Water Swimming Grand Prix are on the cutting edge of fashion, lifestyle, technology and training. They travel and train year-round, competing around the world on 5 continents, always keeping up-to-date on Twitter, Instagram,