Vote now in the World Open Water Swimming Association Awards

14th January, 2020

Voting is now open for the World Open Water Swimming Association (WOWSA) awards.

Across four categories, the awards recognise the people, products and services around the globe that best embody the spirit of open water swimming and have most positively influenced the world of open water swimming. 

Each nominee in the individual and performance categories has achieved impressive feats, whether it is breaking records for speed, distance or endurance, but there are some whose inspiration goes beyond swimming.

Bhakti Sharma (India) is a motivational speaker and founder of Swim to Educate who uses her experiences as a Channel and ice swimmer to inspire the next generation of women and girls. Susan Simmons (Canada) has been living with Multiple Sclerosis since 1995 and uses swimming as a way of raising awareness of and money for the condition. Maarten van der Weijden (Netherlands) who survived leukemia as a young pool swim but has gone on to raise 6.5 million euros for cancer research with his unprecedented 195km canal swim.

The Offering of the Year category is mixed bag, encompassing bucket-list challenges like the Ancient Seven Seas and the Tampa Bay Frogman Swim, autobiographies of exceptional swimmers and products ranging from drowning detection systems to headphones and goggles.

Voting closes at 12:00am (Pacific time zone) on 1 February. Visit the WOWSA website to find out more about each nominee and cast your vote.

Justine Harvey