By Terry Boehmker
NKyTribune sports reporter
Earlier this month, Mariah Denigan spent a few days in Israel competing against swimmers from around the world in the Gulf of Aqaba on the north coast of the historic Red Sea. The 15-year-old Walton resident made the exotic trip even more memorable by swimming fast enough to win two medals in the FINA World Junior Open Water Championships.
Denigan placed third in the girls 14-15 age group 5000-meter race. She was also a member of the United States 14-16 age group team that placed second in the 4×1250 relay.
It was first time that Denigan competed in an open water international meet and the first time that a Northern Kentucky Clippers team member won medals in the junior world championship event.
“Yes, I was surprised,” she said of her success. “I was a little disappointed because something happened with the (5000-meter) course. But, at the same time, I can’t be too disappointed medaling in an international meet.”
Denigan said she was leading the race going into the second turn when she accidently went off course. She made up the distance and passed one of the three swimmers that were ahead of her in a frantic finish to earn the bronze middle.
Her final time was 1 hour, 1 minute and 6.6 seconds. She finished 22 seconds behind the winning swimmer from Italy and 5.4 seconds behind the runner-up from Hungary.
There were 29 swimmers from 17 counties in the 5000-meter race. Denigan established herself as an Olympic hopeful by placing third after winning the USA Swimming national title in the same event earlier in the summer.
“She’s just a hard worker,” said Clippers coach Norm Wright, who accompanied Denigan and her parents to Israel as one of the coaches for the U.S. team. “She doesn’t have any skill sets that anyone else doesn’t have. She just works day in and day out and asks for additional help and support from me and other coaches to get better.”
Open water swimming takes place in lakes, rivers and coastal waters around the world. It became an Olympic event in 2008. There are no lanes for the grueling freestyle distance races. Floating markers designate where to make turns on the course.
“Open water tends to be a lot harder because of dealing with the conditions,” Denigan said. “You come out of the ocean or lake and tend to be a lot more sore because of the tides and stuff. Definitely, it’s harder to me (than racing in a pool).”
Wright said the Clippers have trained swimmers for open water competition for several years. Most of the training takes place in the pool, but there are also sessions at Williamstown Lake.
“I tried it and ended up enjoying it my first year and kept coming back,” said Denigan, who entered her first open water race in the summer of 2013 when she was 10 years old. “Ever since I was little, I always did better at longer distances.”
Denigan qualified for this year’s USA Swimming open water national meet by meeting time standards set for each distance. The races were held during the first weekend in May at Tempe Town Lake in Arizona.
On the second day of the national competition, Denigan won the girls 15-under age group 5000-meter race with a time of 1:01.05.32. She was back in the lake the following day and placed third in the women’s 5000-meter event in 58:53.44.
Those performances earned her a spot on the U.S. team that competed in the junior world championships that were held Sept 6-8 off the coast the Red Sea.
Denigan, who is taking online courses to obtain a high school diploma, visited the holy city of Jerusalem and other historic sites in Israel with her parents after the world championships.
She resumed her studies after she got home and returned to training with the Clippers this week. She’ll be competing in distance events during indoor meets until next spring.
“If she continues with her dedication and hard work, I think Mariah, and some of her teammates as well, in the next two years or six years could possibility have some Olympic opportunities in the pool and open water,” said coach Wright.
Denigan said she wants to swim in college and doesn’t know if that will interfere with her open water career.
“I haven’t really chosen one,” she said. “I’m not at the point where I have to choose between open water swimming and pool swimming. But distance swimming is distance swimming. It’s just whatever happens, happens.”
Emily Brunemann-Klueh, a former Clippers team member, had a lot of success in open water swimming after she completed her college career. In 2009, she won a national championship in the women’s 10,000-meter event. One year later, she became the first American woman to win the overall women’s title in the FINA World Cup that includes eight open water events.
“I definitely look up to Emily,” Denigan said. “She doesn’t compete any more, but we still works with USA Swimming and the open water nationals.”