Steven Munatones is the Founder and CEO of OpenWaterSource.com.
Steven has spent his life in the open water as an athlete, coach, administrator, writer, race director, kayaker, paddler, official, observer and adviser in the the sport of open water swimming.
He was the USA Swimming National Open Water Swimming Team coach at the 2001, 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2007 World Swimming Championships and 2006, 2007 and 2009 national team camps.
He has written several cover stories and dozens of articles for Swimming World Magazine, U.S. Masters Swimming SWIMMER Magazine and Competitor Magazine. He is an International Marathon Swimming Hall of Fame inductee and director – and manages the International Marathon Swimming Hall of Fame website. He is a member of the FINA Technical Open Water Swimming & USA Swimming Open Water Swimming Committees.
He won two national open water swimming championships in 1982 and 1991 and was the World Long Distance Swimming Champion (25K in Lake Windermere, England) in 1982. He did several unprecedented solo swims over 30K in Asia and professional marathon swims in Canada, Mexico and Atlantic City before serving as the NBC Olympics’ Commentator for the 2008 Olympic 10K Marathon Swim in Beijing.
He created the Open Water Swimming Dictionary, World’s Top 100 Open Water Swims, America’s Top 50 Open Water Swims, the World Open Water Swimming Man of the Year, the World Open Water Swimming Woman of the Year, the World Open Water Swimming Performance of the Year, Open Water Wednesday, the Half Century Club, the World Record list, the Pyramid of Open Water Success, Ocean’s Seven and the Open Water Almanac.
He has prepared open water swimming materials used by NBC, USA Swimming, Beijing Olympic Committee, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, National Public Radio and National Geographic Magazine. He serves as the Technical Delegate for the Special Olympics and 2011 World Games and as an adviser to race directors in the USA, from California to New York, Brazil, Cayman Islands, Fiji, Greece, Mexico and Japan. He is a member of the board of directors of Swim Free and was the race director for the Waikiki Roughwater Swim, USA Swimming National Open Water Swimming Championships, the Pan Pacific Swimming Championships 10K and the Distance Swim Challenge.
He wrote the script for Out of the Box, USA Swimming’s 90-minute educational DVD on open water swimming and The Tactics and Techniques of Open Water Swimmers. He has kayaked, paddled, escorted and coached several swimmers in numerous channels and lakes around the world including the Atlantic Ocean, Pacific Ocean, Caribbean Sea, Mediterranean Sea, Sea of Japan, South Pacific and the Hawaiian Islands.
He created The Daily News of Open Water Swimming, the International Marathon Swimming Hall of Fame website, 10Kswim, Virtual Swim, Triple Crown of Open Water Swimming, Water Polo Hair and SwiMetrics. He created and hosted the first Global Open Water Swimming Conference and the Waikiki Roughwater Swim Clinics and conducted numerous other clinics for swimmers and triathletes as well as created Certification Programs for coaches, administrators and referees.
He is a contributing writer to The Science of Swimming and is an advisor to the American Swimming Coaches Association’s Journal of Swimming Research. He wrote Open Water Swimming, a comprehensive tome on open water swimming that will be published in 2011 by Human Kinetics. He advises U.S. Masters Swimming on open water swimming and jointly developed the Open Water Swimming Safety Conference together with U.S. Masters Swimming. He created the first Global Open Water Swimming Conference and has plans for Global Conferences in New York, London, Sydney and San Francisco.
He received the 2010 Irving Davids / Captain Roger Wheeler Award from the International Swimming Hall of Fame and the Glen S. Hummer Award and two Open Water Swimming Committee awards from USA Swimming.
He was born and raised in Southern California, is a graduate of Harvard University, can speak, read and write Japanese, and currently resides in Huntington Beach, California with his wife and four children where he coaches, researches, writes and promotes open water swimming and water polo.
Steven,
I had spoken to you before about cold water swimming. What race was it that you were talking about in Utah that is either a mile or half mile? I cannot find it on the web. Let me know. I am interested. I am also trying to find the record for the longest distance swum in Oklahoma.
Thank you,
Danny Gassaway