The Union Americana de Natacion (UANA) is an organization that is an administrative layer for aquatics in the Western Hemisphere between the national federations and FINA. While they historically have been most prominent in relation to the aquatics portions of the quadrennially held Pan American Games, the organization’s prominence in the year-to-year swimming operations is increasing.
In October of this year, UANA will be hosting the 2014 UANA Pan American open Water Championships. The event will be hosted in Georgetown, Grand Cayman in the Cayman Islands, and will have separate competitors for Junior and Open classes.
Juniors are those aged 14-18 as of December 31st, 2014. Team awards will be handed out, with each federation allowed to send two swimmers per age class, per gender, per race. There will be both 5k and 10k races for men and women, juniors and open, for 8 total races.
See the full summons for the event here.
After their latest meeting, UANA also has published an Open Water Swimming Report from Denny Ryther, the chair of the UANA Open Water Technical Committee.
Other details in that report include:
- There is some concern over water temperatures at the expected open water host in Toronto. While that venue has not yet been publicly named, the report says that a temperature reading taken on July 18th read 14.4 degrees Celsius, or 58 degrees Fahrenheit. That is well below the FINA mandated minimum of 16 degrees Celsius. “This past winter was extremely harsh,” the report reads. “There was still ice in the Great Lakes in May. The hope is next summer will have warmer weather earlier, but we are looking at alternate sites if the need arises. The present site is perfect and we hope it will work in 2015. We need for all our UANA Federations to understand that at 16C or 17C will be a cold water swim. The organizing committee would like to bring me back for another site visit in the fall.”
- 20 federations will participate at the Pan American Sports Festival that will be held in Mexico in late September, with 46 men and 42 women entered.