All articles tagged with #open water swimming
The City of Chicago is expanding the 2026 Chicago River Swim to 750 participants and introducing a new $500 'Big Jump' event for 100 members of the public. The swim, scheduled for September 20, requires fundraising commitments, while the jump on September 18 offers a rare sanctioned entry into the river to support ALS research and youth swim education.
Open-water swimming is rising in popularity, but currents, weather, and water quality can turn deadly; safety advocates urge learning through organized swims, like Baltimore's BOWS, as the city hosted a major Inner Harbor event and rescuers searched for a missing Towson University student in the Potomac River.
Concerns have been raised about high levels of E. coli and enterococci bacteria in Paris's Seine River, where open-water swimming events for the Olympic and Paralympic Games are scheduled to take place. While a cleanup plan is in place, a nonprofit organization has expressed alarm over the potential health risks to athletes. Officials have dismissed the concerns, citing ongoing efforts to improve water quality and stating that the river will be "swimmable" for the Summer Games. Plans to clean up the river have been ongoing since 2016, with the aim of opening more than 20 swimmable sites to the public after the Olympics.
Police believe that the torso found on a Breezy Point beach in New York belonged to Irish filmmaker Ross McDonnell, who was known for his love of open water swimming at night. McDonnell was last seen on November 4, leaving his home to go swimming. Authorities suspect that he likely drowned in the undertow, and the force of the waves may have caused his limbs to be removed from his body. Open water swimming is common in New York City, but less so at night. The NYPD is awaiting toxicology and DNA results for positive identification.
The Open Water Swimming World Cup event in Paris, which also serves as a test run for the Paris 2024 Olympics, has been postponed due to poor water quality in the River Seine caused by heavy rainfall. The women's 10km race has been rescheduled for Sunday, along with the men's 10km. The decision was made in consultation with public health authorities and event partners. Paris 2024 organizers are working on measures to address pollution in the river before the Olympics next summer.
The SCAR Swim is a four-day, 40-mile open water race across four lakes along the Salt River in Central Arizona, attracting world-class swimmers who have successfully swum across the English Channel, Lake Tahoe, Monterey Bay, the Catalina Channel, and around Manhattan. The event was honored as the World of Open Water Swimming Association’s event of the year in 2022. Women have remained at the top of the sport, with a better success rate and faster average finish time than men. The event is a gathering of kindred spirits and a snapshot of Arizona that even locals may not have seen.