In a draft legal OWS race, is it good or bad etiquette to draft off another person for all/majority/much of a race and then swing around and try to take the win?
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Former Member
The analogy to a cyclist having mechanical problems, crashing or urinating in the open water can occur. For example, elite swimmers (including Keri-Anne Payne, the silver medalist from Beijing and recent 2009 world 10K swimming champion) make great moves around the turn buoys, especially when they are in the lead and the rest of the lead pack is following them. They know that the "scrum" of swimmers behind them will slow down due to the physical contact around the turn buoy. The crush of bodies behind them - around a turn buoy, especially one that requires a 180-degree turn - is a great time to put some distance between the leader and the rest of the pack.
The same situation occurs at the feeding stations where the relative positions of the swimmers always changes. Sometimes, athletes miss their feedings due to the crowd of bodies.
In a series of 3 famous 16+ hour races across (and back) Lac St-Jean in Quebec, Canada during the 1980's between Claudio Plit of Argentina and Philip Rush of New Zealand, these fierce and mighty competitors tried every trick in the book to "break" each other. In another famous professional marathon race in Lake Michigan, Abo-Heif of Egypt reportedly turned off the lights on his escort boat as the race went through the night so his competitors could not see his moves which, depending on your viewpoint, can certainly be seen as a breach of etiquette.
On the other hand, I have witnessed great camaraderie among the open water swimming community throughout the world despite differences in language, culture, gender, ability and competitive zeal. I believe this camaraderie - that most visibly manifests itself at the end of every open water swim when athletes are sharing their experiences with one another or during the race when one athlete follows another simply because they have no real idea what direction to swim towards - are some of the great attractions of the sport.
The analogy to a cyclist having mechanical problems, crashing or urinating in the open water can occur. For example, elite swimmers (including Keri-Anne Payne, the silver medalist from Beijing and recent 2009 world 10K swimming champion) make great moves around the turn buoys, especially when they are in the lead and the rest of the lead pack is following them. They know that the "scrum" of swimmers behind them will slow down due to the physical contact around the turn buoy. The crush of bodies behind them - around a turn buoy, especially one that requires a 180-degree turn - is a great time to put some distance between the leader and the rest of the pack.
The same situation occurs at the feeding stations where the relative positions of the swimmers always changes. Sometimes, athletes miss their feedings due to the crowd of bodies.
In a series of 3 famous 16+ hour races across (and back) Lac St-Jean in Quebec, Canada during the 1980's between Claudio Plit of Argentina and Philip Rush of New Zealand, these fierce and mighty competitors tried every trick in the book to "break" each other. In another famous professional marathon race in Lake Michigan, Abo-Heif of Egypt reportedly turned off the lights on his escort boat as the race went through the night so his competitors could not see his moves which, depending on your viewpoint, can certainly be seen as a breach of etiquette.
On the other hand, I have witnessed great camaraderie among the open water swimming community throughout the world despite differences in language, culture, gender, ability and competitive zeal. I believe this camaraderie - that most visibly manifests itself at the end of every open water swim when athletes are sharing their experiences with one another or during the race when one athlete follows another simply because they have no real idea what direction to swim towards - are some of the great attractions of the sport.
