Characteristics and Challenges of Open-Water Swimming Performance: A Review An Italian group has put together the previous literature on open water swimming. In the last 10 years, the popularity of this sport increased strongly.The performance of women increased significantly. It can be assumed that the physique of the woman (more fat and other fat distribution as men) is responsible for this performance improvement. The work can be found under https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28459347/