The 20th Anniversary of the Golden Goggles Awards, hosted by USA Swimming, will be held tonight at the JW Marriott at LA Live near downtown Los Angeles, California. The Golden Goggles is a fundraising celebration of the achievements of the best American swimmers.

Among the awards being presented is the Fran Crippen Open Water Swimmer of the Year. The nominees are:

• Mariah Denigan (2): 8th place in the 10 km at the 2023 World Championships held in Fukuoka. She will also compete at the 2024 World Championships where she aims to join her American teammate(s) at the 2024 Paris Olympic Games. She chalked up a 6th place finish in the 10 km and 4th place finish in the 6 km mixed relay at the Italian World Cup.
• Katie Grimes (17): 3rd place in the 10 km at the 2023 World Championships to qualify for the marathon swim at the 2024 Paris Olympics. She also won the 5 km and 10 km titles at the USA Swimming National Championships.

Grimes is also a nominee for the Female Athlete of the Year, together with Katie Ledecky, Kate Douglass, and Regan Smith. After she picked up her bronze medal in the 10 km marathon swim, she also won a silver medal in the pool in the 400m individual medley. She is also a nominee for the Breakout Performance of the Year.

Grimes’ coach, Ron Aitken of the Sandpipers of Nevada (shown below), is up for the Coach of the Year Awards. Aitken also coached Sandpiper teammate Bella Sims to two World Championship medals in 2023.

Grimes’ 10 km world championship effort in Fukuoka, Japan was also nominated for the Female Race of the Year.

2020 Tokyo Olympic marathon swimmer Ashley (Twichell) Wall is a nominee for the Perseverance Award, an honor given to the athlete who came back from adversity, retirement, sickness, injury, etc., to have an outstanding performance(s) in 2023.

While Wall has faced adversity and sickness during her long, prolific career, it was her pregnancy for which she was nominated for the Perseverance Award. USA Swimming’s nomination reads, “At 33 years old, Ashley made her return to competition at the 2023 Open Water National Championships less than a year after the birth of her son, Lochlan. She qualified for the U.S. Open Water National Team, then went on to win gold in the women’s 10 km at the 2023 Pan American Games. Twichell touched the wall 13 seconds before 2020 Olympic champion and defending Pan American Games champion Ana Marcela Cunha of Brazil in 1:57:16.4. Twichell’s victory marks her first international gold in a 10 km competition as well as her first Pan American Games as an open water swimmer.“

For more information, read here.

© 2023 Daily News of Open Water Swimming

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