2026 Open Water National and Junior National Championships
- Thursday, April 2 – Saturday, April 4
- Sarasota, Florida
- Nathan Benderson Park
- Open Water
- Meet Central
- Start List
- Full Results
- What’s At Stake
The 2026 United States Open Water National Championships kicked off on Thursday morning in Florida, and the men’s 10k saw TSM’s Ivan Puskovitch earn the title by just three seconds over last year’s champion Dylan Gravley.
Top 8 Finishers
- Ivan Puskovitch (TSM) — 1:55:05
- Dylan Gravley (UN) — 1:55:08
- Colin Jacobs (UN) — 1:55:25 *Junior Champion
- Joey Tepper (MINN) — 1:55:26
- Joshua Brown (SAND) — 1:55:28
- Aiden Hammer (TEX) — 1:55:45
- Alexander Lyubavskiy (TXLA) — 1:56:46
- Luke Brennan (MINN) — 1:56:51
Puskovitch swam 1:55:05 in the race, massively improving his 5th-place finish from last year. This was his 2nd National Title in the event after he last won in 2024, though he finished 2nd in the race that year to Axel Reymond from France.
Puskovitch has international experience in the open water 10k races, finishing 14th at the World Championships in Doha in 2024. At the Paris Olympics, he finished 19th overall as the highest American male before he missed qualifying for the 2025 World Championships in the event last summer.
Gravley finished 2nd in 1:55:08, coming in 17 seconds ahead of Colin Jacobs, who finished 3rd in 1:55:25. Both are swimming unattached at the meet. Gravley swam collegiately at Arizona State and Jacobs is only a junior in high school.
Joey Tepper, Joshua Brown, and Aiden Hammer will round out the top six who will get the opportunity to move on to the Open Water World Cup stops in Golfo Aranci and Ibiza. USA Swimming will use the World Aquatics open water scoring system to give the top six swimmers one cumulative score and then the top four will be named to the Pan Pacs team.
Jacobs was the junior champion of the race on top of being the bronze medalist, and he will earn an official invite to the 2026 World Aquatics Junior Open Water Swimming Championships in Argentina for the 10k race.
William Siegel, a freshman at the University of Michigan, finished 9th in 1:57:12. The Junior Open Water Championships allow 19-year-olds to compete in the 10k, which means that even though Siegel will be 19 by the end of the year, he will be the 2nd 10k qualifier for the Junior Open Water Championships in September.
Joey Eaddy of Revolution Aquatic Club finished 12th in 2:01:16, and he was the top 16-17-year-old swimmer, earning a spot on the Junior team for the 7.5k race along with Rockville Montgomery Swim Club’s Nicholas Liberty, who finished 17th in 2:02:50.
It’s pathetic how terrible the live stream was. No clock, no laps left, the camera guy wandering aimlessly or filming nothing at all. I have no clue how close they are to the finish. Absolutely awful. SwimSwam doesn’t even have a single article up until everything is over. You can’t check results anywhere. This is exactly why the US is so bad at open water, nobody gives a damn.
Yup, it is the red-headed stepchild of US Swimming. Neither Ledecky nor Finke, the two biggest names in US swimming, swims open water. I am not even sure how well they would do if they did swim OW. Until the US gets its big names involved, it will continue to be underfunded and underexposed.
Really? I watched it from Aus last year and was surprised at the quality of commentary and knowledge from the guy on the lead boat in particular, he could see and was able to relay through his commentary different tactics that were going on during the race. The vision, as usual for Openwater, could benefit from some quality drone upgrades but I thought it was ok even by international standards.
I have been saying it to the powers that be for years, if the government can get a photo of me hanging on to a 6″ x 3″ mobile phone from 1000 yards away to send me a fine for it, surely the swimming world can get a decent image… Read more »
Very fast times, it’s a shame I didn’t go to the park because USMS I having their nationals this weekend there.
Actually, times don’t seem that fast but as always times can be very misleading in Openwater races, where conditions greatly alter overall finish times. For example, World Cup in Soma Bay last weekend took the Men 1.51 to get inside the top 20, Australian Openwater back in January for Men was won in 1.51 and the Women’s saw Moesha Johnson win it in 1.54 so a USA Male winning in 1.55 doesn’t sound particularly fast but we’ll see how it pans out for them in Ibiza to get a clearer picture when they are against the best of the rest of the world.
Congrats to all that booked their tickets to Ibiza and Golfo Aranci 👏, best of luck… Read more »
There’s definitely a difference if you swim in salt or fresh water, with tides/currents, and wind.
This swim looks like fresh water without current or tides.
Yes it’s fresh without current or tides, same venue as last year where they swam 1.53 with a couple of Aussie’s dictating the pace. Without being there and seeing what was happening a 1.55 appears that Ivan and Dylan may have just been swimming for the place rather than a particular pace, either way the job’s done and now the real work starts over in Ibiza and Golfo Aranci, wishing them both good swims over there.