Serpentine SC’s James Norton will be one of 40 international swimmers who are scheduled to take part in the Capri to Napoli swimming race this Saturday 4 July. We wish James all the best of luck in what will be a very challenging swim for the English Channel and Lake Zurich soloist.
The organisers operate a strict time limit and the swimmers must choose one of three routes from the island to Naples. Each route has advantages and disadvantages and which one to opt for can only be decided on the day of the race. This race will be an exact replica of the tough World Cup race scheduled to take place on Sunday 6 September.
James will race 36kms against swimmers aged between 16 years and 58 years. This distance is longer than the English Channel which James successfully swam solo in 2014. The international flavour described by the organisers includes: Australian-born French Jean Luc Boulanger, Italian Riccardo Bucci, Argentina's Juan Manuel Cordonnier, the Italian Giuseppe D'Alessandro, Spaniard Santiago Ferrada, the Italian Alessandro Fortuna, Czech Michael Mruzek, English-Canadian James Norton, Italian Luca Salati. The sole non-Italian in the women’s race is a big name, Sweden’s Anna Cardin-Nordin.
Six relay teams are taking part: Neptune club (consisting of two French and one Italian); Hallucinated (four Italians); My Swim (six Russian athletes); Nadir (five Italian); My Swim 2 (mixed team of six Russian swimmers); Cane Corso Capri (six athletes of five different countries - two in the United Kingdom, an American, a South African, an Austrian, a Moldovan - representing three continents).
The nations represented in the water on Saturday July 4 include Argentina, Australia, Austria, Czech Republic, Spain, France, Germany, Italy, Moldova, Russia, South Africa; Sweden, United Kingdom/ Canada, United States.
More information is available on the organiser's website here and Twitter here