The race was eventually called at the halfway mark due to safety concerns, with Keller in fifth place at that point. Traditionally, the official finish is determined based on where a swimmer is when they cancel the race. However, after the race, the FINA Technical Committee announced that the race will be finished on Sunday.

The men’s 25K will begin as planned at 10 a.m., and the women will finish the remaining half of their 25K race beginning at 10:05 a.m. Germany’s Britta Kamrau-Corestein was the leader when the race was initially stopped, so she will start first. The rest of the field will then start in order based on the exact times of when they stopped the race.

It is an unprecedented move in open water swimming, and Keller and the U.S. coaches have not yet determined whether or not she will swim on Sunday.

“We’re going to go with the flow and try to get as much information as we can before we make a decision,” said Bill Rose, U.S. open water head coach. “We talked with Kalyn, and we’re trying to assess the situation in terms of the fact that this has never been done before. Since we have all night to decide, we will reassess the situation in the morning based on her physical and mental condition, as well as the weather.”

In terms of the actual race, which was her first 25K, Keller was overwhelmed with the experience.

“That was a terrifying experience,” said Keller, who was a fourth-place finisher in the 800m freestyle at the 2004 Olympic Games. “I don’t know if it was my lack of experience that I was freaking out, but I thought it was a bad dream.

“Last night I joked about the winds being hurricane force, and I would qualify that as feeling like hurricane-force winds. I’ve never really been in the ocean when it was pouring rain or windy like that, and I don’t know if it was just me that needed to calm down, but all I know is that I was just going to keep it moving.”

Open water assistant coach Steve Munatones, who was on one of the feeding pontoons during the race, said waves were easily three to five feet, if not higher, during the race.

“It seemed like some of these swimmers were body surfing these swells coming in,” Munatones said. “There were two squalls during that race where rain was just coming down in buckets. The wind and waves were so strong that turn buoys anchored in to the bottom of the ocean floor with anchors were being torn away.”

Mark Warkentin (Santa Barbara, Calif. / Santa Barbara Swim Club) and Scott Kaufmann (Sparks, Nev. / Reno Aquatic Club) are expected to face similar weather conditions in Sunday’s men’s 25K, the final open water race of the championships.

Follow the link to read the usaswimming.org open water blog, brought to you by assistant coach Steve Munatones.

NOTES: USA Swimming is once again teaming with the World Championship Sports Network (WCSN) to provide live and on-demand coverage of all the action from Melbourne. WCSN.com will provide live coverage of the swimming finals starting on March 25 as well as coverage of open swimming, water polo, diving and synchro. Visit wcsn.com/swimming for the complete schedule.

QUOTES:

Bill Rose, open water head coach, on the technical committee’s decision and its impact:
We’re going to go with the flow and try to get as much information as we can before we make a decision. We talked with Kalyn, and we’re trying to assess the situation in terms of the fact that this has never been done before. We have not made a decision yay or nay as to whether or not she will swim tomorrow. Since we have all night to decide, we will reassess the situation in the morning based on her physical and mental condition, as well as the weather.

For us to say it will be chaos or not isn’t for us to know because something like this hasn’t been done. This never happens. It’s a new thing. The decision is phenomenal one way or another. All of the girls could refuse to race, they could get together and say let’s give it our best shot. My assessment is that you’ve got eight girls that are left at all, and probably 4-5 that have any shot of earning a medal. That may enter into it, but you don’t know what kind of condition the rest of them are in.

Kalyn Keller, on her race (comments prior to the technical committee’s decision):
That was a terrifying experience. I don’t know if it was my lack of experience that I was freaking out, but I thought it was a bad dream. I’m sure if the conditions were calmer, I would have been able to finish, but I’m glad it wasn’t just me. At one point, I thought, ‘Is this really happening? Am I really doing this right now?’ I commend those people who have done races like this and have finished it.

Last night I joked about the winds being hurricane force, and I would qualify that as feeling like hurricane-force winds. I’ve never really been in the ocean when it was pouring rain or windy like that, and I don’t know if it was just me that needed to calm down, but all I know is that I was just going to keep it moving.

When I was little, we used to do (open water swims) in Miromar Lake in California, and I always used to get made fun of because I was the one who would get too scared and tell the lifeguards I couldn’t finish. I was thinking about that during the race, that Klete and Kelsey are going to make so much fun of me if I don’t finish this! All during the race, I kept thinking, ‘I’ve got to finish this.’

Now I’ll say that, of course I could have kept going even if they hadn’t called the race. But I don’t know. There were times that I wanted to get out, but more than that, I wanted to finish.

Steve Munatones, assistant coach, who was on one of the feeding pontoons during the race (comments prior to the technical committee’s decision): That was unbelievable. It seemed like some of these swimmers were body surfing these swells coming in. There were two squalls during that race where rain was just coming down in buckets. I think the wind probably got up to 45 mph. The waves were easily three to five feet from where I was, and I think they were probably higher at the feeding dock further out. The wind and waves were so strong that turn buoys anchored in to the bottom of the ocean floor with anchors were being torn away. At one point, they were telling swimmers to swim around boats as opposed to buoys. When we were on the feeding pontoons, everything was going overboard. Ice chests, chairs, feeding sticks, towels, everything. I lost my shoes.

When you reach the halfway point of the race, you can actually call it. The official finish is where you are at that point when they cancel the race. Paul had seen Kalyn stop three or four times, and we knew the leader hadn’t crossed the halfway point yet, so we were just all hoping she would stay in the water until after Britta Kamrau, the eventual winner, passed half. When she crossed, it was only three or four minutes later that they called the race. It was a good race up until then.

It was like doing a 800-meter swim, and at the 400-meter mark, somebody comes up and says, ‘Ok, stop stop stop. You did the first 400 first, so you get first place, you’re second, etc.’ But Kalyn has now experienced everything possible in open water swimming.

Anything that can happen in open water will happen in open water. All you can do is prepare for everything, which we did, but Kalyn had never experienced this. At one point, she could not know which way to swim. Towards the end before they cancelled the race, Kalyn was probably 30 seconds behind second, third and fourth. At that point, she could not see where she was going. The waves were just too big. We could hardly see where the swimmers were unless there was a safety boat beside them. But even the safety boats, because of the surf and the wind, had to adjust their boats so they wouldn’t capsize. So the boats were moving in all kinds of directions, which meant she didn’t know what to do. She was doing a lot of head-up swimming at the end.

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