Swimming Sandpoint-style

SANDPOINT — Lake Pend Oreille will turn into a sea of arms, legs and colorful swim caps today as more than 500 swimmers will take to the water for the ever-popular13th Annual Long Bridge Swim.

For the first time ever, the race will also be the United States Masters Swimming Open Water National Championships. That race will begin at 9 a.m., followed 10 minutes later by the "community swim" portion of the event.

While there will be world class swimmers, former and current collegiate swimmers and a host of top-notch competitors tearing up the water, the race will also stay true to its original roots — namely providing a fun time for everyone while swimming north along the Long Bridge for 1.76 miles. As always, participants can use floatation devices, fins, life jackets, kick boards, and anything else that might help them get from one side of the lake to the other.

Sandpoint's Trever Gray will be trying to defend his title from last season, when he led from start to finish and was never really challenged. Weather conditions for today's race will be considerably better than last year, when large swells and rolling waves battered swimmers head on for the duration of the race.

As always, swimmers from all over the Northwest will converge on Sandpoint for one of the premier open water races in the United States. One swimmer, Kimberly Hankins, has come more than 3,000 miles to participate in the swim. Hankins, who teaches with her husband in the Yup'ik Eskimo village in Tuntutuliak, Alaska, drove the Alaska-Canada Highway all the way to Sandpoint to visit her family and enjoy all the area has to offer.

"I'm looking forward to spending time with my family over the weekend in Sandpoint, to enjoying the Festival, and above all, to crossing the finish line with my sister," said Hankins, who will be visiting her younger sister, Valerie Fenton of Sandpoint. "It will be awesome to accomplish this together."