OCEAN CITY- The 2nd annual Swim Ocean City event returns to the resort this weekend with a renewed determination and an expanded format including a Stand-Up Paddleboard (SUP) race and other kid-friendly activities, turning the beach into a mid-summer festival of sorts all for a great cause.
The inaugural Swim Ocean City event last July, which featured a series of open ocean swims including a grueling nine-mile swim for strong, experienced swimmers and shorter three-mile and one-mile courses for novices, was a huge success with nearly 200 racers competing and over $22,000 raised for the Johns Hopkins Outpatient Neuro-Rehabilitation Program (ONRP). The Swim Ocean City event was conceived and organized by Berlin resident Corey Davis, who made a remarkable recovery after suffering a significant motorcycle accident thanks in large part to his own determination and the ONRP at Hopkins.
The success of the inaugural event last July buoyed Davis and his team, including Walk on Water SUP owner Sandy Deeley, to expand the event this year. The event, now deemed Ocean Games 2014, will still feature the nine-mile, three-mile and one-mile ocean swims, but will also include a SUP race for both experienced and novice paddlers in the Inlet area.
The ocean swim portion of the event will remain largely unchanged in year two, according to Davis. Last year, swimmers competed in three different distances, including a nine-mile swim roughly the entire distance of Ocean City, along with a three-mile and one-mile swim for those less experienced. The event attracted around 200 swimmers last year competing in the various distances. The courses again will be laid out just off the coast of the resort.
The major addition this year is the stand-up paddleboard race, already deemed the East Coast SUP Cup. The brainchild of the local Walk on Water SUP company, the race will be held near the Inlet and will include an elite course and an amateur course.
According to Davis, the SUP Cup will include a triangular course laid out near the Inlet. Experienced SUP racers will do two laps around the course, getting out of the ocean after the first lap, running down the beach with their boards and getting back in the water for a second lap. The amateur race will include just a single lap around the course.
In addition, the Ocean Games event will include kid- and family-friendly events, face-painting, food and live music and other activities aimed at creating a festival atmosphere along the beach on the day of the event. Davis said this week the changes are part of a larger effort to grow the event into a highlight of the summer season in the resort.
The event gets started tonight with a pre-race dinner at the Ocean Pines Beach Club in Ocean City and mandatory safety meetings with the participants and the Ocean City Beach Patrol. The actual races are set to begin around 10 a.m. on Saturday. The event will conclude with a post-race party at Seacrets on Saturday night.