Swimming Styles Times Seven

Steven Munatones 05/29/2021 open water swimming No Comment

Courtesy of WOWSA, Huntington Beach, California. Photo above shows Dean Jarvis, a dog paddler who swam 25.7 km in 18 hours [read his story in the Wall Street Journal here].

While most swimmers use freestyle to train, race and swim in open bodies of water, there are much smaller percentages of swimmers who use other strokes for their wild swims, stage swims, marathon swims, channel swims, circumnavigation swims, high-altitude swims, winter swims, and ice swims. Ranked below in terms of general global popularity, there are 7 major swimming styles:

Lexie Kelly and Steven Munatones swimming across the Cayman Brac Channel

Brenton Williams swimming butterfly in his native South Africa.

Tina Neill doing one of her record-setting backstroke channel swims.

Combat side stroke by Kelly Gneiting across the Anacapa Channel in 2014. For his later unprecedented crossing of Navajo Lake, Gneiting was nominated for the 2015 World Open Water Swimming Performance of the Year.

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Steven Munatones

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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