Training in sports very often is connected to pain and injuries as well exclusions that emotionally hurt based on age, gender, race, body, health. Swimming, beyond records and metals is recommended as healing activity which can provide injured bodies with relief of pain, recovering and relaxing, empowerment as well. Open water swimming is a growing sport in Greece which is intended to turn to be more inclusive. Present paper deals with discriminations based on gender, disability and age issues amongst ‘amateurs’ open water swimmers. My intention is to explore in which ways people can move on beyond discriminations and exclusions, or in which ways they can engage accessibility, inclusion just as possible whilst acknowledging difference of gender, age and body? Can we rethink open water swimming as a new hopeful perspective for sports generally oriented beyond abuse and harm? Or not? How do people position themselves in this transitional era of training in water? Can they heal what it hurts or underneath they produce new painful experiences? My informants are diversely engaged in sports. Some of them are professional trainers, swimmers; others attend training for health issues, others for sociability and happiness. They are part of open water swimming community and participate to several swimming events inside and outside Greece. Through beloved habits, people can constitute different embodied performances inside and outside the water highlighting how complex, multiple and political field sport can be.
