It's No Luck Of The Irish - It Is Hard Work

It’s No Luck Of The Irish – It Is Hard Work

Steven Munatones 05/23/2011 Open Water Swimming No Comment
Irish marathon swimmer Chris Bryan will be headed to Shanghai to attempt to qualify for the 2012 London Olympic 10K Marathon Swim.

His coach explains, “Swim Ireland set out two criteria to qualify for Shanghai; Chris had to finish [the qualification race in Israel] under 2 hours and within 10 minutes of the winner. He did both.”

But it was a rather circuitous and difficult road to Shanghai.

“The field was very big so they split it into two groups and put the entrants from the stronger swimming countries in the first one. There would have been a big advantage in being in the first group, so that was against him. Chris led the second group all the way and he passed some of the swimmers in the front group,” he explained to writer Owen Ryan.

Chris, like all the other athletes qualified for the Shanghai World Championships knows what went behind the road ahead of him, “A lot of hard work has gone into it. It’s a tough sport and it’s great when you make progress like this. I do a good bit of mileage. On an average week I’d do about 100K. I’d be on deck in the morning at 5:10 am for a 10 to 15-minute warm-up and I’d be in the pool then for two and a half to four hours. I’m back in the evening at 2:30 pm. There’s a warm-up for 30 minutes and then I’d be in the pool for another couple of hours.”

Stroke after stroke, lap after lap, kilometer after kilometer, the athletes all chase their Olympic dreams.

Copyright © 2011 by World Open Water Swimming Association
Steven Munatones
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