OPEN WATERS HISTORY

Swimming was born as a surviving practice against aquatic environment, dangerous for human people.

Necessity of moving was vital for prehistoric tribes, and sometimes they needed to overcome natural obstacles as rivers, lakes, beaches…

Since XVIII century, it was not funded the first Swimming organization. It was made in Englanc, called the National Swimming Society, and was a society that wanted to understand swimming as something more than surviving in the water. It was the flowering age of sports.

That way, first races where organized in rivers and beaches, and with the pass of time, in swimming pools.
Then, in the first modern Olympic games, Athens 1896, swimming was one of main sports, and organizers decided to celebrate all races in the sea, because they wanted to safe money not investing on swimming pool equipment.

Nevertheless, it was not before 2008 in Pekin Olympic Games that Open Waters were considered a specific sport, not depending on FINA (the responsible of swimming competitions in the world).

Nowadays, we can find a lot of variety in Open Waters, with races from less than 1km to authentic swimming marathons of more than 25 kms.

In Spain, we can highlight a few swimmers like Kiko Hervás or Erika Villaécija, who was the only national representant in the last Open Waters Olympic Games race.

We would like to highlight other swimmers like David Meca, who popularized long distance crossings, like Jávea-Ibiza, or the amazing swimmer Margarita “Tita” Llorens, a “purist” swimmer (she doesn’t wear wetsuit) who did other crossings like Ibiza-Mallorca.