Australia Plans To Live Up To Its Legacy
Photo courtesy of Delly Carr of Swimming Australia Ltd.. After capturing the hearts and hopes of his fellow Australians for nearly two hours in Copacabana Beach at the 2016 Rio Olympic Games in the marathon swim, Jarrod Poort will carry on and hopes to finish in a podium position at the 2017 FINA World Championships in Lake Balaton, Hungary this summer.
Poort qualified to compete in the 5 km event together with 2016 Rio 1500m freestyle Olympian Jack McLoughlin based on their finish at the Australian national championships.
On the women’s side, Chelsea Gubecka and Kareena Lee will represent Australia in both the 5 km and 10 km while Gubeck and Kiah Melverton will compete in the 5 km. Hopes are riding high for Gubecka based on her fifth place finish at the recent FINA 10K Marathon Swimming World Cup in Abu Dhabi.
Jack Brazier will swim the 10 km for Australia on the men’s side after finishing 12th overall in the Abu Dhabi race.
Swimming Australia Open Water Head Coach Ron McKeon commented, “It’s great to see so many new faces make up our open water team. Swimming Australia’s Open Water swimming program has implemented a high performance standard early on in the Olympic cycle that will need to be continually met, and I have no doubt that this will help prepare our athletes for the 2019 world championships that doubles as the first qualifier for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
Australia has a proud history in distance swimming in both pool and open water and it’s swimmers and coaches have continually risen to the occasion meeting and exceeding challenging benchmarks – it’s in our nature.
We are now putting our hand on our heart and saying as an open water swimming cohort, we have been left a legacy and proud history and to the honour past successes we need to lift our game and go after it. I’m looking forward to seeing what kind of results they can produce in Budapest.”
2017 FINA World Championship open water swimming schedule:
July 15th 5 km men and 10 km women
July 18th: 10 km men
July 19th: 5 km women
July 20th: 5 km team relay
July 21st: 25 km men and 25 km women
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Southern California native, born 1962, is the creator of the WOWSA Awards, Oceans Seven, Openwaterpedia, Citrus Corps, World Open Water Swimming Association, Daily News of Open Water Swimming, Global Open Water Swimming Conference. He is Chief Executive Officer of KAATSU Global and KAATSU Research Institute. Inductee in the International Marathon Swimming Hall of Fame (Honor Swimmer, Class of 2001) and Ice Swimming Hall of Fame (Honor Contributor - Media, Class of 2019), recipient of the International Swimming Hall of Fame's Poseidon Award (2016), International Swimming Hall of Fame's Irving Davids-Captain Roger Wheeler Memorial Award (2010), USA Swimming's Glen S. Hummer Award (2007, 2010) and Harvard University's John B. Imrie Award (1984). Served on the FINA Technical Open Water Swimming Committee and as Technical Delegate with the 2011 Special Olympics World Summer Games, and 9-time USA Swimming coaching staff. Note: WOWSA only recommends products or services used or recommended by the community. WOWSA does not receive compensation for links or products mentioned on this site or in blog posts. If it does, it will be indicated clearly on that specific post. See WOWSA's privacy policy for more information.
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