Open water assistant coach Steve Munatones has been checking in daily from the beaches of St. Kilda, and after an early-morning check of the conditions, he had this to report. Read further down for his day-by-day account of the open water team’s experience here in the land down under.
Day 10
Date: Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Location: St. Kilda Beach, Melbourne
Sporting events frequently provide memorable moments and clashes that are re-lived over and over again by the athletes, their coaches, parents, families, friends and media. In classic match-ups, athletes go toe-to-toe with one another in stadiums, pools, tracks, gyms, rinks, roads and diamonds.
When the arena is a green, churning, murky, wavy, cold body of water, filled with huge stinging jellyfish and athletes vying for every advantage over a two-hour period, it is truly something to behold. Everything that open water swimming has to offer – both good and bad – was thrown at the 43 swimmers in the women’s 10K race today: Intense battles around every one of the 20 tight buoy turns. Tight pack swimming down the backstretch. Struggles to get over to the feeding pontoons in cross-currents. Nothing came easy, and there was no let-up throughout the race.
Experienced observers thought every competitor looked like they had just swum a long 25K race instead of only a 10K. Jellyfish stings ran up and down the swimmers’ faces, arms and legs. Scratches, cuts and bruises were apparent on the backs of their fingers and knuckles. Gashes on the backs of legs and hips were the norm, all caused by swimming together in extremely close proximity to others over a 2-hour period.
“Everyone was just beating each other up. I have never experienced such a race before. It was horrible," said Germany’s Angela Maurer, one of the most accomplished, toughest and most experienced open water swimmers today.
Toughness and courage defined the efforts of Kalyn Keller and Chloe Sutton. Kalyn placed 9th in 2:04:10, 12 seconds behind the Russian gold medalist, while being in the hunt throughout the long race, going stroke-for-stroke against the finest women’s field ever put together for a FINA open water event to date. If not for only few instances along the course where she lost precious seconds, Kalyn would have been vying for a medal. But, this experience, however trying, will certainly bode well for her in the future.
The entire coaching community who saw the race had nothing but the highest respect for young Chloe, whose goggles were knocked off less than 1K into the race. As her goggles sank to the ocean floor, Chloe knew her chances for medaling immediately vanished. Searching frantically for her goggles and crying out for help to the race officials, there was nothing much anyone could do. Fortunately, the incident occurred only 150 meters from the far feeding pontoon where the American coaches had an extra pair. One of the surf rescue lifeguards on a jet ski came to retrieve Chloe’s new pair of goggles, but by the time Chloe started again, the lead pack had a 3-minute advantage. Chloe put her head down and swam – all by herself, chasing the entire field, intent on getting back into the race. By the finish, Chloe had passed 14 other swimmers to place 28th in 2:15:00.
With the women’s 10K race done, the American men still have their 10K race tomorrow and their 25K race on Sunday. Both Mark and Scott now know well what is in store for them against this intense level of competition with everyone striving for the first Olympic medals in the sport up for grabs next year.
Interesting note 1 of the day: Some foreign swimmers used Vaseline and lanolin on their ankles and lower legs to help prevent their competitors from grabbing and pulling on their legs during the competition.
Interesting note 2 of the day: The American coaching staff used an 18-foot golf ball retrieval pole to provide Gatorade to the swimmers from the very high feeding pontoons.
Day 9
Date: Monday, March 19, 2007
Location: St. Kilda Beach, Melbourne
After the 10K on Sunday, all of the swimmers went to the nearby 50-meter pool to loosen down. Most of the rest of the teams were there also, all nursing their wounds.
Today, all the 10K’ers went a loop around the 2.5K loop of the 10K course in the 65.6ºF ocean water and practiced feeding off one of the feeding pontoons. There are two feeding stations on the course. No escort boats will be allowed on the course for the 10K and 25K with the exception of the coaches on the feeding stations. There is a limit of one coach per swimmer per event. With Kalyn Keller and Chloe Sutton entered in the 10K tomorrow, Paul Asmuth and Steven Munatones will handle the feeding.
The first feeding pontoon is about 1.2K from the start and about 500 meters straight out from shore. The feeding pontoon sits at least 6-8 feet from the surface of the water, depending on the ocean swells, so this presents some technical issues in trying to reach down to the swimmers for a feeding. The height and movement of the pontoon may become problematic if 20-30 swimmers are barreling together towards the feeding station in a large pack in rough seas.
The organizing committee is requiring each of the coaches on the feeding stations to wear life jackets – all bright yellow, which makes it difficult for the swimmers to distinguish their own coach from the dozens of other coaches on the pontoons. But, Jeremy Vail, Lindsay Mintenko, Dr. Miller and Paul devised a new feeding system and schedule that should be convenient and beneficial for Kalyn and Chloe.
The second feeding pontoon is near the start and is 2-4 feet off the surface of the water. Paul and Steve may be together on one feeding station – or they may be positioned on different feeding stations – depending on the conditions on race day and the requests of the swimmers. Because most of the teams are in the same hotel, it is interesting to hear the feeding strategies of the different teams. But, the feeding strategies of the other competitors will become apparent 30 minutes before the start of the race when the coaches have to make a choice and board one of the two different boats that will take them out to feeding stations. The two different boats will be boarded in the same area. So, like managers on baseball teams signaling to pitchers, it will be interesting to see the body language and movement of the coaches just prior to boarding.
The women’s 10K race begins at 12 noon tomorrow which allows the swimmers to get a nice breakfast and warm-up in.
Needless to say, our young ladies are very ready to go. It will be exciting.