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July 28, 2003
Former Virginia swimmers, Dan DeMarco and Ed Moses, competed at the FINA World Championships in Barcelona, Spain last week. Demarco competed in the open water 5K and 10K while Moses competed in the 50 and 100 meter breaststrokes.
Demarco was the top American in the 5K finshing12th in a time of 53 minutes and 31 seconds. He finished 23rd in 10K race with a time of 1 hour, 53 minutes and 56.6 seconds. Both times are faster than his three previous races.
Demarco said, that he “was pleased with his swims, but surprised at the differences in the way the race was swum. In the US, I always swam by myself; however, at Worlds, everyone swam in one huge pack. It involved more strategy because everyone swam on top of each other and I had to be more cautious of getting hit or run over. It was definitely more difficult, but more fun.”
This was Demarco’s first World Championships but hopefully not his last. Head Virginia coach Mark Bernardino said “Dan had remarkable performances for someone competing in his second international open water race. Should he choose to continue, the experiences of the international competitions should make him one of the best American open water swimmers.”
Dan will join many more UVA swimmers next week competing at the US Nationals in Maryland. He will swim the 4×800 free relay and the mile.
Former Olympian and current UVA undergrad, Moses, also took part in the games. He finished 4th in the 100 breast with a time of 1:00.87, 13th in the 50 breast with a time of 28.36, and first in the 4×100 record breaking medley relay. He swam the breaststroke leg on the relay clocking a time of 59.93.
Moses is still in Barcelona and unavailable for comment but Bernardino commented that “Ed’s meet was disappointing, but there’s no question in my mind that he’s the preeminent breaststroker in the world when he puts it all together. He had some solid swims leading into an Olympic year. I don’t like apologizing for a 4th place finish, because just about everyone would like to be where he is; however, he just needs to make continued positive strides to be competitive and to medal in Athens.”
Moses trains with his home club team Curl Burke during the summers and is a volunteer assistant coach with UVA while attending school. He plans to keep training for the 2004 Olympics in Athens, Greece.