Niek Kloots of Open Water Swimming Europe explains the swimmer’s obligation to start, swim and finish with a swim cap on their head. In sanctioned swims in the Netherlands, swimmers who fail to do so are disqualified.

“The swim caps are used to determine who is who during the swim as well as for safety. The caps are in different colors and are numbered. This makes it easier to read rather than using a number on a shoulder.

All swimmers have their own numbered cap with a color according to gender, age and stroke.”

So what happens if the swim cap falls off a swimmer’s head?

“For those situations, we have altered the open water swimming breaststroke rule: ‘It is allowed to stop swimming and start water treading while the swimmer readjust the cap. Only for that, temporarily stopping breaststroke will not be punished.'”

The furthest distance swum in breaststroke in an official meet in the Netherlands was in 2009. Paul Oudendijk swam the entire 22K IJsselmeer Marathon using breaststroke, finishing in 6 hours 48 minutes. He finished a little over 2 hours after the winner Bianca de Bruijn who completed the course swimming freestyle in 4 hours 41 minutes. For his feeds, Paul was allowed to temporarily stop swimming breaststroke and tread water.

Photo of Swimmer #62 shows Jan Eichhorn, born 1939, the oldest Dutch male swimmer swimming breaststroke. The other photos show different heats of breaststroking open water swimmers of all ages.

Copyright © 2011 by Open Water Source