WOWSA Awards head to the Lakes

Ice swimmers, marathon swimmers and Olympic swimmers are among the nominees for the 2015 WOWSA Awards, honouring people, events and contributions to the world of open water swimming. Man of the Year, Woman of the Year, Performance of the Year and Offering of the Year awards will be presented at a gala dinner hosted by Chillswim at the Low Wood Bay Resort Hotel at Windermere in the Lake District on Friday 5 February 2016.

Nominees for WOWSA Woman of the Year include FINA champions Pilar Geijo and Rachele Bruni, 92-year-old Lorna Cochran, ice swimmers Renata Novakova and Elina Makïnen and three-way Channel swimmer Chloë McCardel, whom H2Open profiled in our April/May 2015 issue.
The nominees for Man of the Year include Oceans Seven aspirants 56-year-old Antonio Argüelles, Hungarian Attila Mányoki and Rohans More, the first Indian to successfully swim the Tsugaru Channel and whom H2Open will be featuring in our February/March 2016 issue. The list of 12 nominees also includes Olympian and FINA World Champion Simone Ruffini and ice swimmers Christof Wandratsch and Rostislav Vítek.

Twenty-three swims are nominated for Performance of the Year, including the Wild Swimming Brothers’ Swim the Eden adventure, featured in the October/November issue of H2Open, septuagenarian Catalina relay team The Old Men and the Sea, Nejib Belhedi’s Camel Swim and Wendy Trehiou’s Saint Malo to Jersey crossing.

Offering of the Year honours contributions to the world of open water swimming, including Chillswim Coniston for driving more and more people to extend themselves in the open water, Diana Nyad for her memoir Find a Way, various products and apps, and Water World Swimming Therapy – pioneered by Ori Sela, guest coach in theApril/May 2015 issue of H2Open.
Voting for all four awards is open until 1 January 2016 on the WOWSA website.
The gala dinner will be attended by some of the top open water swimmers in the world, including endurance ice swimmer Henri Karma and Man of the Year nominee Christof Wandratsch.
More info and tickets for the awards
Vote for WOWSA Awards 2015