There were a pair of surprise entrants on Saturday at the Aloha Salads Summer Sprint 1 mile race at Waimea Bay on the North Shore of the Hawaiian island of Oahu on Saturday: Tokyo 2020 Olympians Ashley Twichell and Jordan Wilimovsky.
Twichell and Wilimovsky are currently in Hawaii as part of the American training camp preparing for the upcoming Olympic Games. Team USA will soon depart for their final preparations camp in Tokyo.
But that’s not before two of the three Americans qualified to swim the open water 10km took on a quick trial race on the North Shore.
Haley Anderson, the other American open water qualifier, doesn’t appear in the race results.
Wilimovsky won the 1-mile race in 19:02.2, with Twichell placing 2nd in 19:23.3. The top amateur finisher was 13-year old Zachary Tower, who is part of a team from Team Santa Monica in California that participated in the event. Tower finished in 20:16.6.
The top-finishing female amateur was another Team Santa Monica swimmer: 15-year old Amelia Hines, who crossed the finishline in 21:24.5. 16-year old Mattea Sokolow was just behind in 21:24.7.
Wilimovsky and Twichell weren’t the only Olympians to participate: 37-year old Aaron Peirsol, who won 5 Olympic gold medals and 2 Olympic silver medals while competing at the 2000, 2004, and 2008 Olympic Games, also swam the event. He placed 349th overall.
While the Americans’ COVID-19 safety protocols prevent them from congregating with the general public, the open water swimmers were given permission to participate briefly in the race, though they made a quick exit from the venue to try to stay in line with the spirit of the event.
The open water events will take place after pool swimming at this summer’s Olympic Games. The women’s 10km race will be held on August 4 and the men’s 10km race will be held on August 5. The races will be held at the Odaiba Marine Park in Tokyo Bay.
In the winter, Waimea is one of a number of North Shore beaches famed for surfing competitions among massive waves reaching 60 feet or more. In the summer, though, the Bay is generally clear and calm, making for better swimming conditions.
The event is part of the North Shore Swim Series, which includes 5 races.
408 swimmers participated in the event this year.
For me, the headline is a THIRTEEN year old went 20:16 open water with monster waves.
People are saying he did breaststroke with parachute
Nice to see the OW people getting some sprint work in. Yikes.
I imagine the OW venue in Tokyo will be super warm……UGH!
It must have been a “fun” swim for him. I can verify that AP in the past was a monster open water swimmer.
Talk about fast swimming, Robert “Trey” Freeman swam a 3:47+ 400 meter free yesterday at the Gainesville Sectionals
3:47.04
It ought be a right of passage that once an American goes a 3.47 like Klete did, they ‘ storm the Capitol’ . The budget for the defence of that place is 500 million., so a trickle of about 2-3 per year ought be manageable .
Peirsol 349 out of 408 is pretty surprising… has he not been in the water since finishing his backstroke leg at 2010 pan pacs?
Last time I saw him was at last olympic trials. He looked fit.
He was interviewed by BALCO regular client Amy Van Dyken (shame on USA swimming for picking her to host their shows).
Between 6min46 and 16min58 in the video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sT7QOj7iw-Q
Yeah he looked great at trials. Maybe he was just snorkeling during the race…. 🙂
His finishing time is 40:27. It means roughly 2min30 per 100 meters.
Of course! He did it on backstroke! 😆
Quite normal for the backstroke legend. 🙂
Yeah hard to see where you are going doing backstroke open water. He probably did 4 miles lol
Yea I did that race and there was no way he could have done very much backstroke
That would have been breaststroke.
I didn’t know this about Amy, shots fired Bobo!!
What do you mean about Amy Van Dyken and shame on USA swimming? Just curious.
Maybe he swam it backstroke
I saw Piersol at a Swim Across America OW event close to 10 years ago. He was just messing around and doing underwaters under people having fun. I doubt he was seriously competing
That’s my guess too.
I give Aaron Piersol a lot of credit for doing this swim. He has nothing to prove to anyone and it sounds like he wants to support the event and have fun. He been there and done that as far as being competitive.
I believe he stopped to remove fishing rope from a whale’s fin, then assisted in a dolphin birthing before collecting sixteen tons of pollution and sending it to outer space on a wavelength of plasma energy.
There were a few turtle high fives that took a while too.
349 out of 408?! Piersol must have swum it on his back?? :0)