With more and more people swimming in open water events, what is the best way to separate the heats: by gender? by speed? by age? by swimwear (wetsuit vs. non-wetsuit)? by swimmer's choice?
The need to maintain safety and segregate the swimmers into separate heats becomes more evident. But this raises many issues - none of which are easy to resolve.
If the heats are separated by speed, how do the race organizers best separate the swimmers? Is it by their best times in a pool event? If so, what pool event: the 400-meter free, the 800-meter free, the 1500-meter free? If it is by the open water races, is it by their performance in last year's event? At a different open water event? If so, what are the parameters of the open water qualification swim?
If the heats are separated by gender, and the women's heats go behind the men, is that fair to the elite women? If the heats are separated by age, what are the optimal age breaks?
An online poll at The Daily News of Open Water Swimming is showing some interesting poll results after the first few days.
Parents
Former Member
In my country (NED - The Netherlands) all stats in swims that can be bisexual are regulated in the swimming rules:
distances over 5km do not have segregation (of sexes) if the organizer chooses so.
young swimmers (under 12) can always swim together if the organizer chooses so.
when the male and female starts have a combined total of less than 30 swimmers if the organizer chooses so.
The programmes are usually extensive. seprarate distances for all age groups and for Masters. An ordinary swimming day (in open water) has about 20 starts. OK we do separate breastsroke too.
We, as a standard, do not use wet suits (conform FINA). Of course the Blue70 suits were treated with suspicion. But we follow FINA and we allowed them. That was a mistake. FINA corrected that and they were banned duly. A bit of protest there!
In my country it was a non-issue until Edith van Dijk wished to swim with the men for competition sake. She would not win any prizes with the women, even if she had the best time (of course she would have). The federation did not permit it on besis of the rules. The basics are that women and men compete in seperate heats (in the pool). So that should apply in open water too.
The TOWC has made it possible to (sometimes) swim together on organisatorical argumentations. But not as a rule.
In the most cases we are fine with the rules. I do not know what will happen if we have over 150 participant at the starting line. We have regulated the wave start, but no organization nor judges have dared to go for this novel method.
In my country (NED - The Netherlands) all stats in swims that can be bisexual are regulated in the swimming rules:
distances over 5km do not have segregation (of sexes) if the organizer chooses so.
young swimmers (under 12) can always swim together if the organizer chooses so.
when the male and female starts have a combined total of less than 30 swimmers if the organizer chooses so.
The programmes are usually extensive. seprarate distances for all age groups and for Masters. An ordinary swimming day (in open water) has about 20 starts. OK we do separate breastsroke too.
We, as a standard, do not use wet suits (conform FINA). Of course the Blue70 suits were treated with suspicion. But we follow FINA and we allowed them. That was a mistake. FINA corrected that and they were banned duly. A bit of protest there!
In my country it was a non-issue until Edith van Dijk wished to swim with the men for competition sake. She would not win any prizes with the women, even if she had the best time (of course she would have). The federation did not permit it on besis of the rules. The basics are that women and men compete in seperate heats (in the pool). So that should apply in open water too.
The TOWC has made it possible to (sometimes) swim together on organisatorical argumentations. But not as a rule.
In the most cases we are fine with the rules. I do not know what will happen if we have over 150 participant at the starting line. We have regulated the wave start, but no organization nor judges have dared to go for this novel method.
