(Beijing, May 31) The "Good Luck Beijing" 2008 Marathon Swimming Olympic Qualification, the last pre-Olympic sport event ahead of the Beijing Olympics, opened at Beijing's Shunyi Olympic Rowing-Canoeing Park on May 31, drawing a total of 72 swimmers in the contention for the last 20 tickets to the upcoming Beijing Games.

For the first time in history, Beijing 2008 listed the men's and women's 10km marathon swimming as official Olympic gold-medal events. According to the rules of the International Swimming Federation (FINA), the governing body of the sport, each participating national/regional Olympic committee (NOC) can field up to two swimmers in these individual events.

The Beijing Olympic marathon swimming tournament will involve 50 swimmers, 25 men and 25 women, who are either top 10 from the 5th FINA World Open Water Swimming Championships held in April 2008 or top swimmers (limited to one swimmer from each NOC) from different continents (continental champions) at the current qualifying event. Those NOCs which have already qualified for the Olympics will not take part in this tournament any more.

The two-day event features some 72 athletes from 34 countries and regions. On the men's side, big names coming to Beijing include world No.12 Italian Diego Nogueira, No.16 Damian Blaum from Argentina, No.18 Petar Stoychev of Bulgaria and No.22 Czech Rostislav Vitek. On the women's side, world No.13 Teja Zupan of Slovenia, No.19 and 20 Rita Kovacs and Erika Hajnal of Hungary and American Kirsten Groome will also make every effort to vie for the remaining Olympic berths.

Host China has not taken part in the competitions as it had earned one wild card in the men's event and qualified for the women's through Fang Yanqiao, who finished as continental champion earlier in the World Championships.

The women's 10km marathon swimming kicked off at 9:00 today while the men's event is slated for tomorrow morning.