BEIJING — True story about the new Olympic sport of open-water swimming: Mark Warkentin, the U.S. champion, wondered what he got into when he entered his first international race.
It was in the Amazon.
Two days before the event, he approached the race director and said, “We’re swimming in the Amazon, which is a rather famous river, famous for piranhas and snakes and crocodiles and other things that could probably kill you. Is there any chance of us encountering those?”
The director answered, “No. They don’t want to swim in this area. The water is way too dirty.”
Welcome to open-water swimming, where even Michael Phelps may be intimidated. It’s not the 10-kilometer distance. It’s waves. It’s wind. It’s cold. It’s a mass start with no lanes and no teammates, where black eyes are guaranteed, either by misplaced feet or well-placed fists.
And filth. Warkentin remembers the Amazon.
“Before the race started, I put my face under water,” he said. “And then I come up and go, ‘This water tastes like (bleep!).’ And all the other international guys look at me like, ‘Yeah, it does.’ ”
Warkentin won the race, setting off a second career that could lead to an Olympic medal Thursday. (The women’s competition is today). The Olympic course here is nothing to write home to your doctor about. It’s in the Shunyi Olympic Rowing-Canoeing Park on the Chaobai River, where they dug a ditch, filled it, filtered it and chlorinated it.
That’s about it. It’s a far cry from, say, Rio de Janeiro’s Copacabana Beach, where one of America’s best Olympic medal hopes, Kalyn Keller, thinks she contracted Crohn’s disease, which causes inflammation of the gastrointestinal tract, during last summer’s Pan American Games.
The women’s 25-kilometer race in last year’s Open Water Championships in Melbourne, Australia, was cancelled because of dangerous waves. And that’s just above the surface.
“I’ve seen dolphins and turtles and manatees,” Warkentin said.
Any sharks? “I have not seen any sharks,” he said.
Then there’s the race itself. Warkentin compares it to a stage of the Tour de France where swimmers draft off each other and winning depends on when to attack and when to stay back. The difference is no teammates are there to help. You’re all alone in the open water. And it’s crowded.
“You have a heel to the nose, an elbow to the mouth, constantly hands on the goggles,” he said. “You get a black eye almost every race.”
Warkentin swims 80,000-90,000 meters a week. He needs to be extra fit to deal with some of the unexpected problems. The race takes two hours and requires food stops and, um, pit stops. Boats will be stationed throughout the 2.5-mile course in case exhaustion overtakes the swimmers. There also will be fluid docks.
How do you drink and swim at the same time? Picture an otter feeding on his back.
Warkentin, 28, will put up with it all. He was a three-time All-American at Southern California who did little in two Olympic Trials as a middle-distance swimmer. Three years ago he was ready to quit. But a Cal-Santa Barbara assistant coach told him about an open-water swim against a bunch of weekend hacks.
He won, and kept swimming, all the way to Beijing.
“It’s kind of bizarre to come back from near retirement and having nobody know your name to being on the cover of Swimming World magazine and being one of the first Olympians,” he said. “That’s exciting.”
John Henderson: 303-954-1299 or jhenderson@denverpost.com
