The FINA World Open Water Swimming Championships, or more commonly "Open Water Worlds", was a bi-annual FINA championship for open water swimming^[1][2] held in even years from 2000 to 2010, inclusive. Race distances were 5, 10, and 25 kilometers (also known as 5K, 10K, and 25K).

The 10 km race at the 2008 edition served as the main qualifying event for the 2008 Olympics 10 km event.

Editions

Twelve editions were part of the World Aquatics Championships, and six edition were stand alone editions. From 2011 the biannual event is included only into the World Aquatics Championships.

Edition	Year	Venue	Country	Events
1st	1991	Perth	Australia	2
2nd	1994	Rome	Italy	2
3d	1998	Perth	Australia	6
4h	2000	Honolulu	United States	9
5th	2001	Fukuoka	Japan	6
6th	2002	Sharm El Sheikh	Egypt	9
7th	2003	Barcelona	Spain	6
8th	2004	Dubai	United Arab Emirates	9
9th	2005	Montreal	Canada	6
10th	2006	Naples	Italy	6
11th	2007	Melbourne	Australia	6
12th	2008	Sevilla	Spain	6
13th	2009	Rome	Italy	6
14th	2010	Roberval	Canada	6
15th	2011	Shanghai	China	7
16th	2013	Barcelona	Spain	7
17th	2015	Kazan	Russia	7
18th	2017	Budapest	Hungary	7
19th	2019	Gwangju	South Korea	7
20th	2022	Budapest	Hungary	7
21st	2023	Fukuoka	Japan	5
22nd	2024	Doha	Qatar	5
				120

Stand alone editions

The Open Water Worlds were held in the years between the FINA's main World Championships, providing an annual championships for Open Water Swimming. At its January 2010 meeting, the FINA Bureau decided that to replace this event with a junior (18 and under) championships, making the 2010 Open Water Worlds the last edition of these championships, and 2012 seeing the first of a Junior Open Water Worlds.

Year	Edition	Location	Events	Distances competed	Winner of the medal table	Second in the medal table	Third in the medal table
2000	1	Honolulu, USA	3 (m), 3 (w), 2 (mixed)	5 km, 10 km, 25 km	Russia	Germany	Netherlands
2002	2	Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt	3 (m), 3 (w), 2 (mixed)	5 km, 10 km, 25 km	Italy	Germany	Russia
2004	3	Dubai, UAE	3 (m), 3 (w), 2 (mixed)	5 km, 10 km, 25 km	Germany	Australia	Russia
2006	4	Naples, Italy	3 (m), 3 (w)	5 km, 10 km, 25 km	Germany	Russia	Australia
2008	5	Seville, Spain	3 (m), 3 (w)	5 km, 10 km, 25 km	Russia	Netherlands	Germany
2010	6	Roberval, Canada	3 (m), 3 (w)	5 km, 10 km, 25 km	Italy	United States	Germany  Netherlands

All-time medal table

Rank	Nation	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
1	Russia	23	18	21	62
2	Germany	21	16	17	54
3	Italy	12	15	16	43
4	United States	11	11	7	29
5	Netherlands	9	9	5	23
6	Australia	6	5	8	19
7	France	5	3	3	11
8	Brazil	4	5	7	16
9	Spain	2	5	2	9
10	Greece	2	4	3	9
11	Great Britain	2	4	1	7
12	Bulgaria	1	1	5	7
13	Canada	1	1	0	2
14	South Africa	1	0	1	2
	Switzerland	1	0	1	2
	Tunisia	1	0	1	2
17	Hungary	0	2	1	3
18	Czech Republic	0	2	0	2
19	Belgium	0	1	0	1
	Ecuador	0	1	0	1
21	Argentina	0	0	2	2
22	Egypt	0	0	1	1
Totals (22 entries)		102	103	102	307

Multiple medalists

The best swimmers:^[3]

Men

#	Swimmer				Total
1	Thomas Lurz	12	4	4	20
2	Yuri Koudinov	5	2	1	8
3	Vladimir Dyatchin	3	3	4	10
4	David Meca	2	4	1	7
5	Spyridon Gianniotis	2	3	2	7

Women

#	Swimmer				Total
1	Larisa Ilchenko	8	1	0	9
2	Edith van Dijk	6	5	4	15
3	Ana Marcela Cunha	5	2	5	12
4	Viola Valli	5	2	1	8
5	Britta Kamrau	4	2	4	10