The event, free for anyone to watch, takes place in the Serpentine inside Hyde Park and will feature some of the world's best marathon swimmers including the bronze medallist from Beijing 2008, German Thomas Lurz and the 10km gold medalist from the recent FINA World Champions in Shanghai, Spyridon Gianniotis (GRE), who was born in Liverpool.
In the women's race the silver and bronze medallists from Shanghai, Martina Grimaldi (ITA) and Marianna Lymperta (GRE) come into the race as favourites.
Two British women will compete in the event, Rachael Williamson and Lucy Charles, both of whom are from the British Swimming development squad. Kerri-Ann Payne, who has already qualified for the Marathon Swimming event at London 2012 is currently resting, along with several others from the British squad, after the World Championships.
David Luckes, Head of Sport Competition at LOCOG said of the event: "The London 10km Marathon Swimming International will be used to test the Marathon Swimming course in Hyde Park as well as many of LOCOG's operations. We are delighted to be able to run such an event with a high level of international athletes and look forward to giving the public an opportunity to witness world class sport for free this weekend."
Public wishing to watch the event can do so from the edge of the Serpentine, with some of the best views being on the north side. 40 competitors will line up on Saturday 13 August to tackle 6 laps of the 1.67km course. The women's starts at 10am and the men's race starts at 2pm.
For the London 10km Marathon Swimming International entry lists visit the London Prepares website.
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Notes for editors
For further information, contact betony.garner@london2012.com or call the LOCOG Press Office on 0203 2012 100.
As it heads towards its £2bn budget for staging the Olympic and Paralympic Games, LOCOG has seven domestic Tier One Partners - adidas, BMW, BP, British Airways, BT, EDF and Lloyds TSB. There are seven domestic Tier Two Supporters – Adecco, ArcelorMittal, Cadbury, Cisco, Deloitte, Thomas Cook and UPS. There are now twenty-five domestic Tier Three Suppliers and Providers – Aggreko, Airwave, Atkins, Boston Consulting Group, CBS Outdoor, Crystal CG, Eurostar, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP, G4S, GSK, Gymnova, Heineken UK, Holiday Inn, John Lewis, McCann Worldgroup, Mondo, Next, The Nielsen Company, Populous, Rapiscan Systems, Rio Tinto, Technogym, Thames Water, Ticketmaster and Trebor.
There is one domestic Tier One Paralympic Games Partner, Sainsbury’s and one domestic Tier Three Paralympic Supplier, Otto Bock.
The Worldwide Olympic Partners signed up for London 2012 are Coca-Cola, Acer, Atos Origin, Dow Chemical Company, GE, McDonald’s, Omega, Panasonic, Procter and Gamble, Samsung and Visa.
