Phil White nom­i­nated for WOWSA Man of the Year

Phil White, for­mer IROC di­rec­tor who now runs King­dom Games, is one of 12 peo­ple world­wide who have been nom­i­nated for the World Open Wa­ter Swim­ming As­so­ci­a­tion (WOWSA) Man of the Year.

He’s among marathon swim­ming world cham­pi­ons with nick­names like “Ocean Walker” and the 73-year-old Eng­lish Chan­nel swim­mer Otto Thaning, who is from South Africa.

Other nom­i­nees are from Great Britain, France, Es­to­nia, Mace­do­nia, and the Nether­lands and have an im­pres­sive col­lec­tion of ac­com­plish­ments.

Mr. White has been nom­i­nated for out­stand­ing or­ga­nizer.

The WOWSA awards are meant to “honor the in­di­vid­u­als who best em­body the spirit of open wa­ter swim­ming, pos­sess the sense of ad­ven­ture, tenac­ity and per­se­ver­ance that open wa­ter swim­mers are known for, and have most pos­i­tively in­flu­enced the world of open wa­ter swim­ming dur­ing the year,” the WOWSA web­site says.

“Wher­ever these in­di­vid­u­als ul­ti­mately fin­ish in the WOWSA Awards, they are all won­der­ful role mod­els of the sport, rep­re­sent­ing the epit­ome of every­thing that is cool, right and good about open wa­ter swim­ming.”

Along with 40 days of com­pe­ti­tion in swim­ming, bi­cy­cling and run­ning, King­dom Games will hold the first ever U.S. Win­ter Swim­ming Cham­pi­onships in Feb­ru­ary on Lake Mem­phrem­a­gog.

“There’s lit­tle chance I’ll be se­lected,” Mr. White said Mon­day. “But it cer­tainly shows swim­ming has come of age in the North­east King­dom, and that’s what I’m ex­cited about.”

King­dom Games has at­tracted ath­letes and vol­un­teers from 36 states and eight coun­tries, and Mr. White said about half of the par­tic­i­pants re­turn to the events af­ter ini­tially par­tic­i­pat­ing. They of­ten plan more ex­ten­sive trips the sec­ond time around.

He said ac­com­plished swim­mers praise North­east King­dom lakes like Lake Mem­phrem­a­gog.

“A world class swim­mer who’s crossed the chan­nel sev­eral times…came out of the wa­ter and said, this is the most beau­ti­ful swim of my life,” Mr. White said.

He said the nom­i­na­tion will help him pro­mote events as King­dom Games con­tin­ues to grow. Most re­cently he has added a se­ries of races on lakes that sup­pos­edly have mon­sters. They in­clude Loch Ness, with the Loch Ness Mon­ster, Lake Tahoe with Tahoe Tessie, and Mem­phrem­a­gog with Mem­phre.

The win­ner will be an­nounced Jan­u­ary 1.