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the water is opened by blueseventy

9 Jul 2009

The site, to be managed by Steven Munatones, covers world-wide news, events, results and hall-of-fame members. A new ranking list for open water swimmers is also set to be launched, scoring athletes based on performances around the world.

Already online is an option to track key events, such as the forthcoming World Championships in Rome, live via Twitter. 22,000 people followed the open water events during the Beijing Olympics without the service having been heavily promoted.

Ceo, Steve Nicholls, said: “blueseventy has always been about improving peoples swimming experience. We’ve talked about creating an online portal for the open water swimming community to, share events and results, and communicate their passion for several years now.”

“We needed to find someone who was even more passionate about swimming than any of us to run it. Fortunately with Steven Munatones being completely obsessed with everything open water, we happened to have the right person to drive this concept. I’m really excited that as a company we can gift this to the swimming community.”

Olympic Champion, Maarten Van Der Weijden, said: “It’s fantastic to have a website dedicated just to open water swimming. It’s traditionally been a niche sport, but the Olympics projected it into the spotlight and I fully expect that more and more people will want to take part. Swimming in open water is rewarding and challenging as you have to adapt to the conditions.”

“The sport has taken me to some amazing locations, and I hope this site will encourage more people to take part in more events.”

Open water swim coach and commentator, Steven Munatones, has had considerable input to the new site, and will be the voice behind live updates from Rome and other events. He said:

“Open water is swimming in its purest sense, and I have seen interest grow massively since Beijing. I’m delighted that a major brand such as blueseventy is passionate about pushing the sport even further forward into the spotlight, and look forward to seeing the new site grow and develop.”

The goal is to evolve the site to e a self sustaining entity in the next 2 -3 years and Nicholls is clear that the mandate is for the information to be objective. “This is not a blueseventy site, we’re delighted to be behind it and at this stage funding it, but Steven Munatones has a clear idea of what is going to be up there, and it won’t be brand biased or commercial in any sense. We’ll be the first paying advertisers, and hopefully the first of many”.

He added: “Ultimately this site is for swimmers, and they are the ones who should drive the content.”