By SUSAN LULGJURAJ Staff Writer, (609) 272-7187

Seven hours of swimming might seem like nothing after the week the organizers of the 52nd Atlantic City Around the Island Marathon Swim had.

It wasn't very different than in the past, but after 52 years you would think setting up an event would get easier. The only thing that makes it doable is the amount of help the organizers get from the community.

"This is a community effort, the swim," race director Mike Giegerich said Friday. "We show them that Atlantic City is a wonderful place to come. The world knows it. This is a huge swim."

Seventeen athletes (11 men, six women) from all over the world will compete in the 221/2-mile (37 kilometers) swim around Absecon Island that begins at 8 a.m. today at Gardner's Basin in Atlantic City.

Neither of last year's winners is entered. Stephane Gomez of France won in a course-record 6 hours, 37 minutes, 9 seconds in 2004. Angela Maurer of Germany was the female winner in 7:00:41.

The field does include Petar Stoychev of Bulgaria who is the points leader in the FINA Marathon Swimming World Cup Series. (The Around the Island swim isn't part of the FINA World Cup Series this year. )

Also on the men's side, local favorite John Kenny will compete. Kenny, who lives in Atlantic City, placed second in 2002, which is his best finish in five attempts.

"It's a big race with a lot of fast guys. It's a world-caliber event," Kenny, 25, said. "Marathon swimming is the type of sport that the best guy in the world can have a bad race, fall back and get beat."

On the women's side, four of the six swimmers are in the top 12 of the FINA points list, including Britta Kamrau, of Germany, who sits in second place.

Bringing in these world-class athletes is a challenge because the organizers have to find housing for the swimmers while they are here for the weekend. It's up to members of the community to open their doors, feed them and provide transportation. Usually those volunteers housing the swimmers will take them the pool at Atlantic City High School for a workout, but due to maintenance it is closed. Instead, the City of Pleasantville opened its pool to the swimmers.

Even Giegerich, who is bombarded with tasks, opened his home to Mohamed Serour of Egypt, who is sixth on the FINA list.

But Serour hasn't seen much of Giegerich because lately the race director has spent most of his time in either his car or at Gardner's Basin setting up the event.

"It never ends," said Geigerich in a telephone interview while driving to the finish line at Gardner's Basin. "The easiest part will be during the race. By then everything is done."

The Atlantic City Beach Patrol has its own difficult task before the race. It has to call other beach patrols and get boats.

Atlantic City provides five crew boats while the others come from neighboring towns and those as far away as Upper Township and Wildwood.

The beach patrol also will have members advising the swimmers of current conditions and strategies, anything that will make the race easier.

The City of Atlantic City provides much of what is needed, right down to the table and chairs that the race committee members use.

The city also provided the organizers with money to support the $25,000 purse. Without it, the event was in jeopardy.

"We support the race, we always have," said Ron Cash, the city director of Health and Human Services. "We support it with logistics, we support it with dollars. The city is one partner in making it happen."

With all the behind-the-scenes work done, the rest is up to the swimmers.

Their only concern now as they swim through the Atlantic Ocean and the back bays of Longport, Margate and Ventnor might be the choppy water because of Tropical Storm Irene.

To e-mail Susan Lulgjuraj at The Press:

SLulgjuraj@pressofac.com