Elbows ready, swimmers take to the open water

By John Chalmers

BEIJING (Reuters) - The controlled, almost comparatively genteel swimming at the pool will be replaced with the flying elbows and body checking of the open-water swimming at the Beijing Olympics this week.

Comparing the pool to open-water swimming, according to the 10km swimmers who are making their debut at the Olympics, is akin to bracketing chess and boxing together as sports.

The banner on the 10kswimmer.com website tells the tale of physical endurance required for the women and men who will plunge into the waters of the Shunyi rowing venue outside Beijing on Wednesday and Thursday:

"No Guts, No Glory. No Pain, No Gain. No Risk, No Reward. No Lanes, No Lines. No Walls, No Mercy."

"Everyone fights for the inside line, it's elbows under the water and stuff like that," said South African Natalie du Toit after a qualifying race in April.

"A lot of us came out with black eyes and a couple even had scratched corneas."

Australian Grant Hackett, 1500 meters champion in Sydney and Athens, tried to qualify at the same event and appeared to be targeted by his rivals. He was disqualified after he tried to get out of trouble by swimming over another competitor's legs.

"I saw a couple of times people hitting him and swimming over him and obviously hurt him quite badly, and he just didn't have enough in the end," said compatriot Ky Hurst.

At the first modern Olympic Games, in 1896, the swimming events were held in open water near Piraeus.

Swimming at the Paris Olympics four years later took place in the River Seine -- with the current -- and the events included an obstacle race which required the twelve entrants to climb a pole, scramble over a first row of boats and swim under a second.

There may be echoes of that spectacle at this week's marathon as swimmers jostle for the top spot, bunching in a pack as they round buoys marking out the course.

The elbowing and bumping can be fierce at "feeding pontoons", where coaches offer their swimmers energy-boosting drinks at the end of sticks. The swimmers have to grab, gulp and carry on, and if their coach falls into the water they are out of the race.

However, this week's races may be more refined because the number of entrants has been limited to 25 for a course that should take the men just under two hours to complete.

Perhaps the best-known competitor will be du Toit, who lost a leg in a 2001 motorbike accident and carried South Africa's flag in the athletes' parade at the opening of the Games.

She is aiming to become the first amputee to win a medal at a Summer Games for nearly 60 years, though her chances are slim.