Milan Stencl wins the 1000m
Yet more strange weather in the first week of February as the mercury rocketed in the latter part of the week to hit around 9c on Saturday lunchtime. The riverbank which was still carpeted with snow on Wednesday evening was reduced to a muddy, boggy mess.
Luckily the water at 2.8c was still on the cold side of freezing and just about right for winter swimming. This pleased most, not least the 3 visitors from Italy (Paolo Chirano, Alberto Salvi & Thomas Kofler) who on hearing about the conditions promptly declared that “this will be the coldest water he have ever swum in”. They were given a get out clause as they recieved their diplomas on registration and before they had seen the 500m course or opened thier kitbags let alone dipped a toe in the water!
Although these 3 were the first Italians to take part in a Czech winter swimming event and had a myriad of open water successes between them they were upstaged by none other than the 97 year old Dr Vladislav Nicek. Having taking taken no part in the current season he decided he would grace this event with his prescense and onlookers were not dissapointed as he fought with the current for a few minutes and even managed a few strokes of crawl before finding his way back to the bank unscathed. I can only say it is quite incredible to see him in action especially when you see how obviously frail he is.
Dr Ladislav Nicek - 98 later this year and still braving the 2.8c water
Notable participants aside there were distances of 100, 250, 500, 750 & 1000m with the latter 2 being sporting contests. (races) All eyes were on the 1000m as most of the best swimmers were to be found here amongst the 54 starters.
It was quite a sight as they got underway and a long lingering pelaton began to develop. Unsurprisingly it was the duo from PK Zabreh Milan Stencl & Denisa Haltmarova who were at the head of affairs although for the first 500m they had plenty of company as a group of some 15 swimmers tried to stay with them before breaking up into 3 more groups in second half of the race. In the end it was a great finish as Stencl just took first place by half a second in 10.14.5. It was then 26 seconds back to Vlastimil zaoral (junior) now of PKO who was closely followed by the second woman home Lenka Pacakova of Fides Brno. It was almost another 6 minutes before all 54 got home but they all finished and that is of course objective number one in winter swimming…. sorry its number two, number one is to survive. There is some humour in that but next week sees the championship races at Brno where the water will not only be colder than 2.8c but it will be still water without any aid from the current. These above mentioned objectives will really come into play and it is just a pity that there are another seven days to wait!
No turning back now for Kofler (left), Chiarino & Salvi
Leave a Reply