FINA President Mustapha Larfaoui says the partnership with blueseventy is an exciting development for marathon swimming: "FINA has successfully expanded the Olympic competition programme with the introduction of 10km Marathon Swimming events for both men and women, starting at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games. The partnership with blueseventy will allow FINA to assist event organisers and raise the level of all events in the nine race series. All in all it’s a great boost for the profile of marathon swimming in this FINA’s Centenary Year."
blueseventy’s revolutionary new swim skin, the pointzero3 nero, will be the official swim skin of the FINA 10km Marathon Swimming World Cup.
blueseventy have been involved in open water swimming for the last 20 years as the leading triathlon wetsuit design company, but the new technology of their pointzero3 nero swim skin means their swim skins can be used in all FINA events, and certainly introduces some excitement to FINA marathon swimming events.
Geoff Matthews, Head of blueseventy swimming, says the goal of the partnership is to foster the growth of open water marathon swimming worldwide. "FINA should be congratulated on how it reinvests all revenues back into the series to aid their development. We love the fact that the series will also be developed to have age group events on the same day to go along side the elite 10km race. We believe that these events will grow in popularity both in terms of attracting elite swimmers from the pool, as well as larger age group fields, particularly masters swimmers," Geoff Matthews says.
The FINA 10km Marathon Swimming World Cup Series consists of nine events held in all five continents, and offers a series total of US$260,000 cash prize money for elite swimmers, as well as age group finisher’s medals and prizes.
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