Marathon Swimming at the Aquatics WA World Championships 2023

[OlympicsFan 858]

First gold for Germany in the women's 10 km since 2001 when this event was contested for the first time ... in Fukuoka of all places. Also might be interesting to know that Beck trains in the same group as Paltrinieri ... maybe a good sign for him.

Edited July 15, 2023 by OlympicsFan

[phelps 7,677]

8 hours ago, OlympicsFan said:

Expected gold for Beck with an amazing strategy. Finishing top 3 is a huge (and in my opinion unfair) advantage. The top 3 can now already prepare for Paris. Personally i am happy that no nation won more than one quota. At times the race was very hard to follow (why does everyone have to wear a white cap ...), but the finish was very exciting. I think next year Grimes will be smarter and should be the one to beat in Paris.

well, with the new rules the advantage is really low, as all the others just need a not so tough OQT in the 1500m (which they can swim in short time, no need to wait until Doha 2024)

 

great tactics by Beck, unfortunately for her the Paris race course will not allow any magic (it's basically a narrow channel, it's like swimming in a very long pool rather than true open water)

 

I agree on Grimes being the favourite in Paris (but never underestimate the fast finishers like Cunha and Van Rouwendal on that kind of course)

 

p.s. amazing race in general, but once again poor tv direction...I know it's not easy to shoot an event like this, but sometimes I have the feeling that they miss the basics of the job

Edited July 15, 2023 by phelps

[Vektor 3,326]

1 hour ago, phelps said:

well, with the new rules the advantage is really low, as all the others just need a not so tough OQT in the 1500m (which they can swim in short time, no need to wait until Doha 2024)

Yeah, the Hungarian preview for the men's 10k pretty much says that Rasovszky and Betlehem can just focus on the racing before Paris, they are already secured thanks to their easy qualification in 1500m. The open water qualification will be way less stressful for those who compete in the pool. 

[OlympicsFan 858]

3 hours ago, phelps said:

well, with the new rules the advantage is really low, as all the others just need a not so tough OQT in the 1500m (which they can swim in short time, no need to wait until Doha 2024)

 

great tactics by Beck, unfortunately for her the Paris race course will not allow any magic (it's basically a narrow channel, it's like swimming in a very long pool rather than true open water)

 

I agree on Grimes being the favourite in Paris (but never underestimate the fast finishers like Cunha and Van Rouwendal on that kind of course)

 

p.s. amazing race in general, but once again poor tv direction...I know it's not easy to shoot an event like this, but sometimes I have the feeling that they miss the basics of the job

I don't think that Beck needs any magic. She only narrowly missed gold last year and won 2 of the 3 world cups this year. She is clearly the best in the world right now if we exclude Grimes. If Beck is at 100 %, then noone except Grimes and maybe Kirpichnikova should beat her. The question is whether other athletes will switch from the 1500 m. Athletes like Quadarella, Pallister, Gose, Johnson or one of the fast american girls (Weinstein/Cox?) could see this as their only chance to win a gold medal.

Edited July 15, 2023 by OlympicsFan

[OlympicsFan 858]

1 hour ago, Vektor said:

Yeah, the Hungarian preview for the men's 10k pretty much says that Rasovszky and Betlehem can just focus on the racing before Paris, they are already secured thanks to their easy qualification in 1500m. The open water qualification will be way less stressful for those who compete in the pool. 

On the one hand that is good to hear, on the other hand it kind of kills the sport of open water swimming. The easier it gets to switch/transition, the more "open water specialists" will disappear. Open water swimming might turn into another pure distance swimming event.

[JoshMartini007 2,537]

43 minutes ago, OlympicsFan said:

On the one hand that is good to hear, on the other hand it kind of kills the sport of open water swimming. The easier it gets to switch/transition, the more "open water specialists" will disappear. Open water swimming might turn into another pure distance swimming event.

I agree. There's always been some negativity towards swimming in that it has too many events and the overlap of athletes between two events is high. If open water turns into just another event for long distance swimming event with the same athletes competing I can see a push for having it dropped from the Olympics.

[OlympicsFan 858]

52 minutes ago, JoshMartini007 said:

I agree. There's always been some negativity towards swimming in that it has too many events and the overlap of athletes between two events is high. If open water turns into just another event for long distance swimming event with the same athletes competing I can see a push for having it dropped from the Olympics.

Maybe that is the goal ...

IAA ... world athletics should maybe take notes (if they want to get rid of race walking)

[Vektor 3,326]

29 minutes ago, JoshMartini007 said:

I agree. There's always been some negativity towards swimming in that it has too many events and the overlap of athletes between two events is high. If open water turns into just another event for long distance swimming event with the same athletes competing I can see a push for having it dropped from the Olympics.

I would rather cut 1500m from the program than open water if the redundancy becomes too big. At least open water requires different tactics. And long distance pool swimmers were perfectly fine with only 400+1500 and 400+800 until IOC decided that men and women should have the same events, so having only 400+800 for both genders should be fine as well. 

 

[phelps 7,677]

42 minutes ago, Vektor said:

I would rather cut 1500m from the program than open water if the redundancy becomes too big. At least open water requires different tactics. And long distance pool swimmers were perfectly fine with only 400+1500 and 400+800 until IOC decided that men and women should have the same events, so having only 400+800 for both genders should be fine as well. 

 

I'd rather scratch the 800m from the pool schedule (at least there's enough difference to have different stars in 400m and 1500m instead of an easy double for the best middle distance specialists), changing the 10km with the 25km as the individual open water event at the Olympics and switching also the mixed gender relay from the pool (where it has no technical sense) to the open water (2M & 2W*2.5km, where men and women should swim in different legs, though...no chance to mix it up and make it a mess -way better the biathlon style rather than the current swimming rules)

 

in any case, don't give the IOC the awful idea of dropping the open water swimming from the schedule...rather, try to develop better organizers and better tv producers for it

[Olympian1010 7,976]

I’d drop both the 800m and 1500m events from the pool, introduce a 1000m race, and leave the open water event alone.