New medal event + cash prize = record field

OLYMPIANS and world champions will join almost 400 athletes at this weekend’s Australian Open Water Championships and OceanSwim Festival at Bunbury in Western Australia to compete for a $50,000 prize purse.

The four-day event from January 22-25 in Bunbury, about 170km south of Perth, is the first major Australian-based swimming event of the year and 378 athletes will hit the water including a dozen international swimmers.

Athletes will also contest a brand-new medal event on Day 3 of the festival with the 3km knockout sprints getting their maiden voyage at an Australian Open Water Championships.

The 3km knockout sprint features three races in a short time period, tournament style, with one heat of an open water 1500m, before one heat of a 1000m sprint, and then finishing off with the last 500m sprint. The last 500m determines the winner. Ten athletes will progress through to the final.

Athletes will also be vying for more than bragging rights in the Indian Ocean waters off Bunbury – in addition to national titles, top Australian senior contenders will also be competing for funding ahead of qualification races in Spain and Italy ahead of the Pan Pacific Championships to be held in California in August.

And for junior Australian athletes, selection for the Junior World Championships in Argentina is also on the line.

Athletes from Sri Lanka, Japan, New Zealand, Samoa, Bahrain, Switzerland and South Africa will also line up.

A cracking women’s field is headlined by the world’s best open water swimmer in Moesha Johnson (pictured left) – Johnson won gold in the women’s 10km and 5km at World Championships in Singapore last year and a gutsy bronze in the 3km knockout sprint.

Joining her over the four days of competition will be the Dolphins’ world championship teammates hometown hero and 10km World Championship bronze medallist Kyle Lee (pictured right), Nick Sloman, Thomas Raymond and Tayla Martin.

Proud Bunbury Olympian Lee, who broke through for his maiden national open water title in January last year and then went home with the triple crown said: “I am so excited that I get the chance to swim in front of a ‘home crowd’ so to speak and to share one of my favourite places in the world with the open water community.”

“We travel around the world to compete in various events and to have a national championships in my backyard for the first time is really special – the water is so clean, and yes you are pretty much guaranteed to see a dolphin there … and I don’t mean us Aussie swimmers.”

Fellow Dolphins and noted pool swimmers Sam Short and Tiana Kritzinger will also be making the trip west with the pair joining a stacked men’s and women’s 10km field.

All will be racing for the $50,000 prize purse on offer for the Top Eight finishers of the men’s and women’s 10km that features $8000 for the first, $6000 for second and $1500 for third descending down in value to 8^th place.

The event also blends high-performance racing with the community focused OceanSwim races, attracting hundreds of amateur swimming enthusiasts.

A variety of distances are on offer for the community swim, including 500m, 1.25km, 2.5km, 5km, 7.5km and 10km options, with registrations to be taken right up to race time.

Taking place in Koombana Bay, the 2026 event is being held alongside vibrant community events and is proudly supported by the WA Government, through the Tourism WA and the Regional Events Program, and the City of Bunbury. The event is hosted in partnership between Swimming Australia and Swimming WA.