World Aquatics hatch plan for open water relay to join Olympics

Australia’s elite dominated at Fukuoka, now swimming’s governing body is hatching a plan to cash in on the starpower of the most dominant team in world swimming.

If you think Australia’s swimmers have been dominating their opponents at this week’s world championships in Fukuoka – wait til you see what’s in store next.

Rather than try to dampen Australia‘s one-nation pool party, the sport’s global leaders have taken notice of the massive interest the star-studded Dolphins squad have generated and want to cash in.

In an exclusive interview with this masthead, World Aquatics revealed they are already hatching plans to better promote the sport’s biggest stars – including two game-changing ideas that are custom-made for the Aussie team.

The first – which World Aquatics hopes to launch at Brisbane 2032 – is to include an open water relay at the Olympics – likely to take place on the Gold Coast.

The marathon swimming relay is already on the world championship program but officials are pushing hard to have it added to the Olympics to entice the best swimmers to race both pool and open water swimming.

Australia’s swimming stars were utterly dominant at Fukuoka. (Photo by Sarah Stier/Getty Images)

Featuring two men and two men, each swimming 1500m, the relay would tap right into Australia’s love of surf lifesaving and distance swimming, and open the possibility of blockbuster races between the likes of American superstar Katie Ledecky and Australia’s new long-distance young gun Sam Short.

“The open water relay is a high priority item for us,” World Aquatics executive director Brent Nowicki said.

“We really like the action, we really like the exchanges and we like the future of the relay.”

There is no open water relay planned for next year’s Paris Olympics and although talks are taking place about including it for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, Nowicki said he expects it will be held at Brisbane because he knows Australians will embrace it.

Australia won two medals in open water at Fukuoka, including a bronze in the mixed relay.

“This is what we‘ve been trying to push and this is the story that we’re telling, this is the playbook that we’re playing: bring the pool summers over and integrate them into the open water,” he said.

“Of course, we have to be careful with the planning and timing … but it has a lot of potential and we‘d love to see it at the Olympic Games so we’ll continue to push it.

“Whether that happens in LA is unknown but my guess is that we‘ll see it at the very latest in Brisbane because it is a strong open water swimming community.

“We love the energy of open water swimming there and if we have to wait til then so be it but it‘ll be something that’s really worthwhile.”

Australia took home bronze in the event at Fukuoka. (Photo by Yuichi YAMAZAKI / AFP)

The other radical idea, that hasn‘t been formally discussed yet but more progressive officials are at least open to it, is whether to increase the number of competitors each country is allowed to enter in individual events.

Currently at the Olympics and world championships, each country is restricted to just swimmers but some sports, including athletics, allow for three.

Swimming’s rationale is that it wants to stop countries from dominating so the medals get spread out but the flip side is that medals aren’t always being won by the fastest swimmers.

In the women’s 100m freestyle for example, Australia has three swimmers ranked in the top five in the world but only two were allowed to compete in Fukuoka.

Shayna Jack missed out even though she’s in red-hot form in the relays, posting times that would have won her the silver medal in the individual event.

While she was watching from the stands, 76 other women who were slower than her all got to compete, including some she would have beaten by almost a full lap.

Nowicki said World Aquatics liked its universal approach to swimming because it gave opportunities to more countries but there could be scope for allowing each country to have a third competitor if most nations agreed.

“Right now, we‘re quite comfortable with the two athlete rule,” Nowicki said.

“But why not think about it? It could certainly make for some further interesting races and finals.

“The downside, as I see it, is if some other country misses out on the case of having someone in the final because there’s three US and three Australians taking up six lanes.

“But I get it. You want the best racers, you want the best action, you want the fastest times.

“So it might be something that’s more suitable for the World Cup than the world championships.”