Talk:Open water swimming

Advertisement?

I'm sorry but isn't "Companies such as Vivida Lifestyle produce such changing robes for Wild Swimming and other waterside pursuits." together with a link to the companies website just a blatant ad? Rariruth (talk) 11:03, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

@Rariruth Yep, nice catch. Removed. A note: new sections should be added at the bottom of the page, for future reference. Thanks! Tony Fox (arf!) 18:16, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

Safety & Legal Aspects

This article used to have a safety section. I believe that this should be added back, and expanded. Finding sources for safety is easy. Legal aspects including campaigns could be included, but this is perhaps more open to discussion. In most countries in the world there are, as far as I am aware, few campaigns for increased access to water, as access is given. In the UK this is different. Here's a short BBC news piece mentioning this campaign. This material could perhaps better be put on a page about RALSA itself, but I'm still looking into what I need to do to establish notability for an article on RALSA itself. Would this BBC news item (video) be sufficient? BBC news article on open water swimming Ross-c (talk) 10:44, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Bibliography

All else being equal, I would like to add a bibliography section to this page. Previous versions of this page included a bibliography. I would like to add one back in, including books related to both competitive and recreational open water swimming.

Picture

, I agree with your sentiment and thank you for your constructive comment. My own opinion is that it would be nice to have two photos, one illustrating competitive open water swimming, and the other recreational. I may be able to take a photo at the triathlon club training session tomorrow. Otherwise I may be attending the national open water championships on Sunday. Neither will give me the "500 swimmers in the water at the same time frantically splashing" impressive picture that would be better. Opinions on having two photos, and what the second (or both) are invited. As I wasn't planning to take a camera to either but will do so if it will benefit Wikipedia. I did try cropping the photo, but I only took a cheap camera with me to Windermere, and the cropped version doesn't look good. Ross-c (talk) 15:13, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Excellent open water swimming competition photo found in wikimedia commons. This is used elsewhere in Wikimedia commons. And some might consider it more "purist" to have a photo of an open water swimming only race rather than a triathlon. But personally I think it an excellent illustration for the article. Ross-c (talk) 12:58, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

There are indeed so many photos available at www.10Kswim.com of the most recognized open water swims in the world. These photographs are from solo swims, marathon swims, competitive short-distance races, charity swims, circumnavigations, channel crossings, river races, lake swims, etc. I advocate taking photos of swimmers without wetsuits (that are generally worn by triathletes) than with wetsuits. (Steven Munatones)

Scope

The keyword for this article is "Open Water Swimming". This term is frequently used for both competitive and non-competitive swimming. Additions to this page concerning non-competitive open water swimming were undone with the explanation that this is outside the scope of this article. I do not believe this to be the case. Neither is there any requirement for a river to be "large" to be open water.

Please do not undo the edits concerning non-competitive open water swimming. If anyone believes that this page should be restricted to non-competitive open water swimming, then please discuss it here. Please refer to the dispute resolution procedures of Wikipedia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ross-c (talk • contribs) 08:19, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

I checked out the broader topic "Swimming" and it includes aspects of swimming that are non-competitive, so what's the problem with including non-competitive aspects in the open water swimming section?

If it's a real problem I suggest creating a specific page for "Competitive Open Water Swimming", to differentiate it from the activity that most open water swimmers engage in.62.189.1.23 (talk) 10:09, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

As an open water swimmer myself, I can say that it doesn't only refer to competitive swimming. It certainly includes non-competitive discipline as well. If competitive open water swimming needs an article of its own, then you should start a new page for that. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.254.135.1 (talk) 10:27, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

The user Diez is contining to revert changes to this page, without adequate reason. The pictures clearly showed someone swimming in a river, and in a lake. But these "don't show swimming" according to their reasoning. And they claim "no authorative sources"? How are these relevant to the pictures. And the links are links to national organisations concerning open water swimming? What on earth? Ross-c (talk) 14:01, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

OK, I propose a Wikipedia:Truce on this page, until we work out a method of establishing a good definition of "open water swimming". Ross-c (talk) 14:28, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

First piece of evidence. It was claimed that the deleted photograph does not show swimming. Here is the definition of swimming from Wikipedia itself. Swimming is the movement by humans or animals through water, usually without artificial assistance. Swimming is an activity that can be both useful and recreational. Its primary uses are bathing, cooling, travel, fishing, escape, and sport.. That is what I was doing in both photos, moving through the water without artificial assistance. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ross-c (talk • contribs) 14:31, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

There is a dispute between myself and Deiz on this page. He has not responded on this talk page, but has discussed the issue on his talk page. User_talk:Deiz A third opinion has been requested. Ross-c (talk) 16:22, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

More evidence obtained. Dover lifeguards with a (competitive) definition of open water swimming. [1]

River and lake swimming association, "open water swimming" in rivers that are not large. [2] —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ross-c (talk • contribs) 16:36, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

More evidence obtained. This is where the ASA National Open Water championships will be on Sunday. It's a rectangular thing. I.e. "open water" = "outdoor". [3] Ross-c (talk) 17:18, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Open water swimming - no mention of size, it's outdoor. [4]. I'm still adding these, but know that a proper disambiguation will require more. Ross-c (talk) 17:25, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Open water - mention of lakes and rivers, no definition by size. But importantly, major newspaper coverage of the Outdoor Swimming Society. [5] Ross-c (talk) 17:30, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Open water for triathlon. [6]. No mention of river size. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ross-c (talk • contribs) 17:31, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Description of various types of swimming. Open water used generally (as is typically the case for recreational open water swimming). [7] Ross-c (talk) 17:39, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Mentions rivers, mentions close to the shore. No mention of size of location for "open water swimming". It's outdoors. [8] Ross-c (talk) 17:44, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

“Swimming in open water such as lakes, rivers, canals and the sea is very different from swimming in an indoor swimming pool,” says the asa’s chief executive officer David Sparkes. [9]. Again, outdoors = "open water", no mention of size, and canals are small and shallow. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ross-c (talk • contribs) 19:01, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Unless there is further discussion in the next few days, I will change the definition of "open water swimming" on the article page to that given by David Sparkes of the Amateur Swimming Association, giving the Northern Echo newspaper article as a reference. Personally I believe that the common usage of the word is even more general than that, but the difference is small. Ross-c (talk) 10:02, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Why is Aaron Peirsol's Race for the Oceans the only race included in this definition? There are at least 1,000 open water swimming events around the world with more participants and a longer history than this race. Also, several organizations, including the Beijing Olympic Committee and national sports federations, have used the terms defined by the Open Water Swimming Dictionary created by www.10Kswim.com. Perhaps this Dictionary that is used by many of the world's most experienced open water athletes, coaches and administrators, can be referred to when discussing how to define this sport. (Steven Munatones) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Munatones (talk • contribs) 16:08, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Olympics

Is this the same open water swimming that will be in the 2008 summer olympics? if so, this page is horrible and definitely needs to be looked over. I have seen also Open-air swimming. Is this the same thing?

It is open water. This page needs definite revising as it will soon be linked to one of the largest sports network pages on wikipedia. --Jared ^[T]/_[+] 02:38, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Added a piece about Olympic inclusion. Surprised it wasn't there already. [Note: I was not signed in when I added it].--NPswimdude500 ^{(Talk|Contribs)} 23:39, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

This page describes open water swimming in a very general way in the first sentence, then is almost entirely about competitive open water swimming. I think both need to be covered in this page. Ross-c (talk) 23:01, 4 August 2008 (UTC) I've added links to RALSA and OSS, and hope to add a relevant picture from Wikimedia Commons. But these are non-competitive resources.

The Olympic 10K Marathon Swim is very much a part of open water swimming. The event itself was planned and organized by the same individuals who run open water swims (both competitive and recreational) around the world. The concepts and goals of the sport of open water swimming are embodied by the Olympic 10K Marathon Swim. Descriptions of and photos from this event are at www.10Kswim.com which also includes a comprehensive Open Water Swimming dictionary that was translated into several languages by the Beijing Olympic Organizing Committee and used by NBC in its television broadcast of the event in the U.S. The Olympic 10K Marathon Swim was broadcast in over 70 countries, so I believe this aspect of open water swimming should be included in the definition. If Aaron Peirsol's Race for the Oceans and the Rottnest Channel Swim are included as examples, then the world's most publicized open water swim should also be included. (Steven Munatones) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Munatones (talk • contribs) 16:05, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Re: Merger

• Oppose. There is soon to be an olympic sport added to the roster that will be Open water swimming. I strongly suggest that because of this, this page should be kept where it is. If anything, long-distance swimming should be moved here. Really, this page needs to be cleaned up to Olympic standards. → J@red  20:11, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

• Oppose. The two sports are completely different, as open water swimming is not pool swimming, but swimming in the ocean, rivers, and lakes, a totally different experience. Griot 20:21, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Not only was the Olympic 10K Marathon Swim added to the Beijing Olympics as a medal event, but the 2012 London Olympic Organizing Committee has a very specific location and protocol for the Olympic 10K Marathon Swim to be held during the 2012 Olympics. Information on the specific location and plans are posted at www.10Kswimmer.com. (Steven Munatones) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Munatones (talk • contribs) 16:08, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

The water conditions in the large rowing basin on a windy day is much rougher and more difficult to swim than a calm lake on a windless day and the ocean on a calm day. To swim in a cold rowing basin in the winter, early spring and late fall is much colder than swimming in an ocean and river in summer in most places in the world. An English Channel solo attempt is significantly different than a swim in the South Pacific or Caribbean Sean. The point is that the air temperature, wind conditions, tidal conditions, geographic location and time of day or night have significant impact on the difficulty of any swim. Because the sport covers all these types of swims, all these types of swims should be included in this definition. (Steven Munatones) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Munatones (talk • contribs) 16:08, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Dispute

Okay. I'm going to step in here as an uninvolved admin and try to figure out what the heck the reasoning behind this little edit dispute is.

Here's what I'd like. Ross-c, please post here a concise explanation of your edits and what you feel the benefits to the article are. Deiz, please explain why you feel they're inappropriate. Let's try not to argue about it; I'm trying to make sense of what has generated the problem so far. I'm tied up with other stuff but will check in at times and hopefully we'll be able to come up with a good way forward without protection, threats, etc. Okay? Tony Fox (arf!) 17:13, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

OK, I'll start. First, I believe that the article is dreadful. It doesn't have any sources except US only sites on competition. It didn't mention recreational open water swimming at all. It didn't have any photos. The most important things I did was to add external links to the River and Lake Swimming Association, and the Outdoor Swimming Society. Both are notable organisations in that they are frequently referenced by national newspapers, published and widely distributed books, etc. But what I feel was the most important contribution of these links was safety information, which is entirely missing from the original article. The links allowed visitors to the page to find out more information about open water swimming, and my first though on adding the links were there, in my opinion vital, safety information. Other information available from these pages would be very useful, but I believe the safety advice offered by those organisations is the best example of how those links add value to the article. There are lots of other problems with the article. For example, it claims that all you need to go open water swimming are swim trunks. That's clearly wrong as it is entirely possible (and quite common) for people to go open water swimming in the nude. Not that I do this myself, but anyone involved in recreational open water swimming knows that a big proportion of people who follow this hobby prefer nudity. It's not a big point, but upon reading the article I wondered how it survived through many edits. Anyhow, I was hoping to do much more work on the page, getting other people at various levels involved. But at first I added the link and one recreational picture. That started the whole thing off. That I felt helped with missing information (available from links) and addressed the competitive/recreational balance.

What I would suggest as a resolution is this. Either, we go through a procedure to clarify the exact definition, or we start the article off with a paragraph which discusses both competitive and recreational open water swimming. Finding a disambiguation may be tricky. I have searched, but all you find is common usage of the terms in the broad and inclusive way that I see it. There are, I believe, too many people using the term in the inclusive definition to completely ignore this. But if a resolution is required, we'd need to pass it on to knowledgeable third parties. The most reliable people would in the UK be people I know, so others may not like that. Easier would be a paragraph noting the stress between "open water" + "swimming" as a layman would understand it, and "open water swimming" as those involved (at least in a recreational way) would understand it. Then perhaps this paragraph could link to two articles. One on "competitive open water swimming", and the other perhaps titled "outdoor swimming" for recreational use. The definition, IMHO, should be changed. While "open water swimming" . The disputed River Cam photo could move to "outdoor swimming", and I or someone else could provide another photo for competitive racing. The only open water race I'm likely to attend over the rest of the year is the ASA 3KM Masters open water championships which will be run in a fugly rectangular piece of water. Hence almost anyone prepared to donate a photo will likely to better than me. Though training photos are less of a problem as our training lake is more picturesque. In any case, if the article was structured this way, and if editing was cooperative, I'd be happy to continue working on it. Particularly until safety aspects are covered properly, I'm very keen to add to the page. An alternative to splitting the page into three pages would be to divide it into sections, with a general paragraph at the top. In that case other synonyms such as "wild swimming" and "outdoor swimming" could redirect to the same page. However, I feel it would be incorrect to simply ghetto-ise recreational "open water swimming" under one of the other headings as "open water swimming" is probably going to be what people interested in recreational open water swimming are going to search on.

What I'd like to see is people giving comments on their idea of a way forward, in a constructive way. Then we can get something good out of it. Ross-c (talk) 18:30, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Any comments? In particular, I think the quote from David Sparkes above gives a source for changing the definition of open water swimming in the first sentence.Ross-c (talk) 06:16, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, since Deiz has disengaged, I'll try and forward this. The article should include both aspects of the topic - it should be led by an indication that this is both a recreational and a competitive activity, using a description based out of the sources found above. (Of those, by the way, I'd drop the blogs - they're not reliable sources, but the Independent article "Different strokes..." is a good basis to work from.) We can have individual paragraphs on recreational and competitive after that, and links to the associations would be reasonable, to my view. As for photos, the one that an anon provided out of the Commons today is quite good, so I've removed the disputed pic for the moment; as I've said before, I think a picture that has more open water would be more appropriate for the recreational side. I'll give this more consideration as I go, but have other things to do at the moment, so will leave it there for now. Tony Fox (arf!) 16:12, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

It was me that added the triathlon start picture. I forgot that I wasn't signed in. I intend to extend the article as previously described, but am planning to do so bit by bit and over time so that any controversy can be sorted out. And now that the external links with the safety advice are in there, I'm a bit more relaxed :) I think that the currently deleted recreational picture (or a better one, I would personally prefer a whole family picture but my partner dislikes water) should eventually go back in, but can see the problem with having the picture there before I (and/or others) change the definition and expand the sections. If there are separate sections on recreational and competitive (and endurance?) open water swimming, then different pictures can be used. I wasn't expecting various blogs etc. to be a good source for a definition, which is why I kept on searching. There are other key phrases such as "Wild Swimming" and "Outdoor Swimming" which are partial synonyms with "open water swimming", but finding sources for exact definitions for might be difficult. Being as these are all partially synonymous, I don't think they would deserve separate pages. As these sections grow, different photos can be used. For the recreational side, several groups of friends of mine have been on swimming holidays in the Med, "island hopping". If not something from the commons, I'm sure I can get something from them uploaded. One problem that will occur if I do too much of the editing myself is a UK bias. For example, for endurance sea swimming, I'm sure I can ask people I know to contribute English Channel and round Isle of Wight photos, but I would have to ask further afield for endurance swimming elsewhere (E.g. Lake Ontario). Ross-c (talk) 09:50, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

PS, I've just discovered that there is an article about OWS in The Telegraph on Saturday 9th of August. Perhaps an up to the minute source. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ross-c (talk • contribs) 10:34, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

I have one suggestion on your plan of attack: let's try and find a recreational picture that doesn't involve you or your close associates. One of the concerns raised previously was the "vanity page" idea; while I recognize that's probably not an issue, it would be better to find a picture involving someone else. Other than that, it sounds like you've got a reasonable plan for moving forward. Tony Fox (arf!) 16:00, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

[10] - added as a link as this talk page is already getting huge. I think to make it a thumbnail it might need cropping. I haven't looked into the cropping rather than resizing options (if any) available when including pictures in pages. But a cropped version could be created under the creative commons licence, I presume. These people are sitting rather than swimming (another criticism), but I couldn't find a better picture on the commons, though searching through more obscure keywords may work. II personally have no problem with this pic, but it may lead to "discussions" in the future. Ross-c (talk) 17:49, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

---

The picture of the guy in the creek is indeed quite poor. I suspect in any case, that open-water swimming doesn't particularly lend itself to good illustrative photos. A depiction of open water would tend to overwhelm depictions of swimmers.

As for definitions, I'd suggest that people who are particularly interested in Olympic sport start their own page. Open water swimming is almost self-explanatory. Personally I find the non-competitive aspects of the activity of much greater interest and am disappointed that the page doesn't adequataely discuss them. Surely one would imagine there are far more people who engage in non-competitive open water swimming than competitive open-water swimming. John Menlove Edwards, just for example, a notable British rock climber from the 1950s, had some rather astonishing and fascinating achievements in open-water swimming, which he pursued in an entirely non-competitive manner.Calamitybrook (talk) 04:45, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately, Wikipedia removed the Olympic 10K Marathon Swim entry because they said it was not appropriate for inclusion as a separate entry. Therefore, the Olympic 10K Marathon Swim and other standard distances (1K, 1 mile, 5K,, 25K, etc.) and other governing bodies (e.g., Catalina Channel Swimming Federation, Channel Swimming Association, FINA) for well-known open water swims worldwide should be included in this definition. There are approximately 600 organized races worldwide with approximately 750,000 advocates based on my multi-year research on the sport. (Steven Munatones) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Munatones (talk • contribs) 16:40, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Hero and Leander

Hero and Leander is a first written instance of open water swimming in history. 213.149.61.151 (talk) 16:11, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

Organizations

First world association for marathon swimming (in open water ) was Fédération Internationale de Natation Longue Distance founded in 1954. In 1963 it is divided into two that existed until 1970is: International Long Distance Swimming Federation (ILDSF) and World Professional Marathon Swimming Federation (WPMSF), both of which organized their own world championships. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.149.61.151 (talk) 16:15, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

References