Beijing Olympics

The 10,000-meter Open Water Swim Race: Nearly Two Hours of a Grueling Swim Capped by a Furious Finish

open water swimming fort copacabana

In the first four Olympiads, from 1896 to 1904, swimming events were held in open water areas like The Mediterranean, The Seine River or artificial lakes. As mentioned in a previous post, the 1908 Olympics in London were held at the massive White City Stadium that had a pool and diving area built into the infield. For the most part in recent history, swimming events have been held in pools, and recently indoor pools.

At the 2000 Olympics, the triathlon was introduced, which includes a 1,500 meter swim in open water. At the 2008 Beijing Olympics, athletes could compete for the first time in a 10,000 kilometer swim. In Beijing, this 10,000 meter swim took place in a rowing-canoeing park, while the same race took place in The Serpentine, which is a recreational lake in Hyde Park, London.

For the 2016 Rio Olympics, both the triathlon and the 10,000 meter swim competition will commence at Fort Copacabana, which is at the southern edge of Rio de Janeiro. This is truly open water as Fort Copacabana opens up into the South Atlantic Ocean.

There has been a lot of news about the filthy and possibly dangerous conditions in the Guanabara Bay waters, where the sailing events will take place, but Fort Copacabana is about 30 kilometers away from the polluted waters of Guanabara Bay, and there is less anxiety about sickness and safety for he triathlon and 10,000 meter race. This is how the site openwatersswimming.com puts it.

Fort Copacabana to Guanabara Bay

As can be expected in a beach bordering a major metropolitan area, Copacabana Beach is not pristine and there is plenty of urban runoff in the water, especially after a rain. But it still remains one of the world’s most iconic beaches and presents one of the world’s greatest natural amphitheaters for open water swimming competitions. With a twice daily inflow and outflow of water from the Atlantic Ocean, major events like the Rei e Rainha do Mar and Travessia dos Fortes are hugely successful.

To me, what is more amazing about the 10,000 meter open water swim is how close the finishes are. Unlike a 10k run, which is completed in 26 to 28 minutes at high performance levels, a 10k open water swim will take about 1 hour and 50 minutes to 2 hours, which is a little less time than a fast-paced foot marathon of 42 kilometers. While 10,000 meter race finishes are determined by seconds, marathon top finishers are often ten to thirty seconds apart.

Maarten van der Weijden
Maarten van der Weijden, winner of the first Olympic 10,000 meter open water swim competition in 2008.

In the short history of Olympic open water racing, after nearly two hours of grueling swimming, the differences between the top finishing times have been seconds, even fractions of seconds. At the first 10,000 race in Beijing, only two seconds separated the medalists, 1.5 seconds being the difference between gold and silver. At the London Games four years later, only 3.4 seconds separated first from second.

All this after nearly two hours in the water!

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Ticket Sales for Rio Olympics Underwhelming: The Empty-Seats Phenomenon to Continue

2004 Athens Olympics

Reports are that only 50% of tickets to the Summer Games in Rio de Janeiro, starting on August 5, have been sold. For the Paralympics in September, only 12% have been sold.

The Brazilian economy is shrinking during its worst recession in 25 years. The President of Brazil is under threat of impeachment for a decision to include an ex-President in her cabinet, someone under investigation for receiving bribes in the Petrobras corruption scandal. The Zika virus continues to spread in Brazil, a disease where there is now “strong scientific consensus” that it is a cause of microcephaly in newborns.

Those perhaps are the biggest factors that will result in many empty seats of a possible 7.5 million that are available for the Rio Olympics.

What’s interesting is that empty seats at Olympic Games is a recurring headache and embarrassment for Olympic organizing committees.

At the 2004 Games in Athens, “only about two-thirds of the 5.3 million tickets were sold“. At the 2008 Games in Beijing, organizers claimed that all 6.8 million tickets were sold, and yet empty seats blotted arenas throughout the Games. And at the 2012 Games in London, where pledge after pledge was made by organizers to fill the seats, and that “more than 20 million applications were made for the 6.6 million available seats”, the London organizing committee could not prevent the empty-seat phenomenon.

Empty Seats at Gymnastics Competition at London Games
2012 London Games

Athens and Rio share a common issue in that their economies may not be vibrant enough to drive local ticket sales. But Beijing and London do. Other factors are at play, resulting in tickets going unused. This article from The Guardian regarding empty seats at the London Games indicates that a few groups who are granted reserved seating, often the best seats in the house, just don’t show up:

  • Accredited members of the Olympic family, which include international sports federations, IOC officials and corporate sponsors,
  • Guests of corporate sponsors who receive tickets more for their affiliation with the sponsor and less regarding their interest in the Games
  • Members of the press, who may be less interested in heats and preliminary rounds
  • Athletes, particularly in the first week of the Games as all athletes are preparing or competing

Beijing pointed to another group – agencies that buy and re-sell tickets to people overseas or to people locally anticipating a spike in demand during the Games. Westerners in

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Baseball at the 1964 Tokyo Games: Hidden in Plain Sight

The baseball cards of Shaun Fitzmaurice and Chuck Dobson, who played in the Olympic baseball exhibition at the Tokyo Games in 1964.
The baseball cards of Shaun Fitzmaurice and Chuck Dobson, who played in the Olympic baseball exhibition at the Tokyo Games in 1964.

Baseball has a long history in Japan, from the time in 1934 when Babe Ruth played in an exhibition series in Japan, to when Hideo Nomo and Ichiro Suzuki exploded on the scene in Major League Baseball, to the recent years of Japan’s success in the World Baseball Classic Series.

But baseball is not an Olympic sport. And it wasn’t in 1964 either.

While baseball was not an official event at the Tokyo Olympics, it was in fact a demonstration sport. On October 11, 1964, a team of 21 American college ball players played a team of Japanese amateur all stars. And the American team went on to win 6 to 2 in front of 50,000 fans at Meiji Stadium.

The baseball cards of Gary Sutherland and Ken Suarez, who played in the Olympic baseball exhibition at the Tokyo Games in 1964.
The baseball cards of Gary Sutherland and Ken Suarez, who played in the Olympic baseball exhibition at the Tokyo Games in 1964.

That was the first of a series of exhibition games that the Americans would have with Japanese teams across the country, in cities like Numazu, Hamamatsu, Nagoya and Osaka. Japanese fans got to see future major leaguers like Chuck Dobson (Athletics), Gary Sutherland (a utility man who played for 7 major league teams), and Shaun Fitzmaurice (Mets), who hit the first pitch of the first exhibition game for a home run.

But the reality is, baseball was not an official event, and was thus given little attention by the press, which may have suited some of the players fine. As told in this interesting history, “Baseball in the Olympics“, by Peter Cava, the American players were not Olympians, and so did not live in the Olympic Village, or live by strict curfews.

The contingent wasn’t considered part of the official U.S. Olympic team. Instead of quarters in the Olympic village, the baseball players found themselves staying in an antiquated YMCA. Eventually the team moved to more suitable lodgings in a Tokyo hotel. They soon became the envy of the other American athletes. Unlike their brethren in the Olympic village, the baseball players weren’t subject to curfew. One team member recalls attending a party with sprinter Bob Hayes and Walt Hazzard of the basketball team. When Hayes and Hazzard had to leave early to make curfew, the baseball player continued to boogie to his heart’s content.

The overriding purpose

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