Christine Jennings, Becca Mann First Two for US World Championships Roster in Barcelona

Our open water correspondent Mike Lewis will bring full reports later in the day, but he’s currently on the boat calling play-by-play for USA Swimming, so he’ll bring his view from the best seat in the house later this afternoon.

In a wild back-and-forth race, Christine Jennings has won the women’s 10km race at the 2013 Open Water National Championships in California, which stamps her ticket to the World Championship in Barcelona this summer. She will be joined by 15-year old Becca Mann from the Clearwater Aquatic Team. Most of the focus on her has been around her pool swimming, but her growing reputation for a love of tough races makes her a great candidate in open water.

This means that last year’s Olympic silver medalist in the 10km swim, Haley Anderson, will be out for this premier event, and will have to wait for the 5km to see if she can make the squad through a win. Anderson was 8th overall in this finish, though depending on who declines or how things shake out, 3rd-6th in this race could potentially take spots at Worlds.

Anderson made many attempts to fight into the lead pack, but appeared to be frustrated by a lot of contact (no cards were drawn that we could tell, though we’re awaiting official results.) Most of Anderson’s moves were to the inside, which can create a lot of contact. At one point in the last half-a-lap, she floated off about 8 meters to the right  of the pack and fell back to 7th or 8th place, but was able to fight back in several times. Ultimately, she just couldn’t get in the position to make her famous closing kick that we saw her have so much success with last year.

In 3rd was Eva Fabian, who looked like she was maybe shoulders first ahead of Mann coming into the finish, but a video review showed that a great reach by Mann got her hand on the wall first. Emily Brunemann, who has returned home to train at Club Wolverine in Ann Arbor where she was in college, was in qualifying position within the last 300 meters of this race (as were many swimmers) but couldn’t hold on. She finished 4th, which means she’ll be back on the National Team after a furious finish at last year’s Nationals bumped her back to 7th and out of the benefits that comes with National Team standing.

Ashley Twichell, the other representative at the Olympic qualifier last year, was in 5th, and Arizona State’s Tristin Baxter was 6th. Twichell lead large parts of this race, but at one point rolled onto her back to let Fabian take over the lead, and though she held it again a few other times, she couldn’t put in the same kick as she did at last year’s Open Water Nationals.

Notably, leading huge parts of this race was Lindsey Clary, younger sister of Olympic gold medalist Tyler Clary, who will go to Ohio State next year. She unexpectedly led for at least two laps early in this race, and though she fell well back by the finish, it was an admirable push for the young swimmer to make a name for herself in the open water world.