The production company www.video4net.eu/ made this film
Following a long and harsh winter in Central Europe spring literally “sprung” quickly at us in the last few days of March, bringing sunshine, warm air,and crucially warmer water for swimming.
The championship had been scheduled to be held in Brno at the end of January but due to the river being frozen solid it was impossible to cut a pool of the required size in order for the championship to take place.
Therefore prospective champions had to wait until the 3rd of April to compete for the title. Instead of near freezing water and sub zero air, it wa a case of 9c water with the air somewhere in the region of 14c ! Hardly “extreme winter swimming” but cold enough to leave the swimmers a little chilly after completeing the 750m course. Indeed ask some pool swimmers whether they fancy 9c water, you won’t have many takers ! So here is another lesson for those new to cold water swimming – When we swim in near freezing water for around 15 minutes in January it really is extreme there is no other way to describe it, but this doesn’t mean that 9c is warm, it’s just not quite as bone chilling in as short a space of time. 1c water hurts, 9c water doesn’t but it is still cold !
Gradual acclimatisation is important,winter swimming is not practised by “nutters” insome show of bravadoit is a more serious business than that. Some long distance and marathon swimmers use cold water swimming during winter as a means of training for their main open water goals during the summer.
If you are interested follow this link to learn more about how to prepare for starting the exciting sport of winter swimming http://extremewinterswimming.com/Vc
