Courtesy of WOWSA, Huntington Beach, California.

Petar Stoychev has been doing flip turns in a pool all his life. The 5-time Olympic swimmer and 11-time professional marathon swimming champion has done tens of thousands of kilometers swimming back an forth in a pool, always doing flip turns at the end of the pool.

But now he is into winter swimming and ice swimming and has to compete exclusively using the open turn.

We foresee the elite, highly competitive athletes who are emerging in the sport of winter swimming and ice swimming to figure out ways to make open turns as fast as possible. Over the next generation, how will they make the open turn more efficient?

*Do they touch the wall under the surface of the water and then turn?
*Or do they touch the wall at the edge and turn?
*Do they take one big breath or a few short breaths while they are turning?
*Do they dolphin off the wall or just push off the wall and start swimming right away?
*Which way do they turn their bodies at the turn?
*Will they “bilateral turn” (i.e., turn their bodies either left or right depending on the hand which with they touch the wall)?

It will be interesting to see the evolution of the open turn over the next generation of winter swimmers and ice swimmers.

Stoychev is shown above using an open turn at the 2016 Winter World Swimming Championships in Tyumen, Russia.

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