Anurag Singh, Ashmita Chandra Win KIBG 2026 Gold as Open Water Swimming Rises

Since then, swimming enthusiasts have been braving the waves from Dharamtar to Gateway in India, hoping to conquer the sea and make a name for themselves by breaking the record as the youngest to swim the distance, according to a KIBG release.

Those dreams suffered a setback when the English Channel adopted a rule that only swimmers over 14 years old could attempt the swim, and most other expeditions adopted the same rule.

One of Maharashtra's team managers, Neha Sapte, swam from Dharamtar to Gateway when she was just nine years old, before the age limit was introduced. "Because of that rule, I shifted to shooting, and I am happy that I went on to represent India in that sport."

But Open Water Swimming is now an Olympic discipline, introduced at the 2008 Beijing Games, and features a 10km circuit course in either the sea or a river. And that has been instrumental in attracting pool swimmers to the discipline, and the focus is now shifting from expedition to competition.

At the Khelo India Beach Games 2026, Anurag Singh of Uttar Pradesh and Ashmita Chandra of Karnataka, who had won medals in Khelo India Youth Games and Khelo India University Games in the past, clinched the gold medals in the men's and women's 10km races.

Both Anurag and Ashmita trained for the event in the pool, focusing on endurance training where they would spend almost six to seven hours in the water twice or thrice a day. While Anurag set a timing of 2:22:02sec to win the gold, Ashmita tapped the finish line at 2:46:34.

The difficulty of transitioning from the pool to open water is evident: in the pool, the longest race distance is 1500m, whereas the Olympic movement recognises only 5km and 10km in Open Water swimming.

Ashmita, who has already participated in four Open Swimming World Championships, explained the technical difference between swimming in the pool and the sea. "The waves and the course is quite challenging in the sea apart from the distance itself. A day before the race, I tell myself to stay prepared for the worst. It normally takes one lap to understand the tide, and then I focus on my speed."

Even organising an Open Water Competition in the Sea is a challenge in itself, as organisers must study the tide table a month in advance and monitor it weekly before finalising the exact race time.

"We have to pick the lowest tide difference to conduct the race because swimming in a loop can become too difficult if the current is too strong," explained KIBG 2026 Competition Manager Rahul Chiplunkar.

"The waters are choppy, and there is more glide because of which the strokes are also different to what the swimmers do in the pool," Chiplunkar said, adding, the swimmers also have to train to study direction and plan their race according to the tide size.

Anurag acknowledged that he still hasn't studied the technical aspects of Sea Swimming, as it is a new discipline, and has participated in only a couple of Open Water events before making his KIBG debut. "Also, I train in Delhi, and there is no sea there. So all my training has been in the pool."

Chiplunkar, who was part of the 2016 Sea Hawk Relay Team, which swam a distance of 1000km from Mumbai to Mangalore, said the introduction of Sea Swimming in the Khelo India Beach Games has finally started attracting more and more players to the sport, and India now needs to have a structured approach to developing swimmers in this discipline.

"The first Diu Beach Games had about 40 participants. That number rose to 50 last year in the first Khelo India Beach Games, and now we have 70 swimmers participating in this edition of the Games."

"India has such a big coastline that we can really do well in Open Water Swimming. The sea in Goa and Karnataka is quite calm and good for sea swimming. Right now, training in the sea is a challenge due to the various permissions that need to be taken. If we can sort that out, we can produce many more international athletes," he said.

- ANI