Winter swimming contest, Jicin, Czech Republic

Long distance open water swimming takes place during the summer months with an average water temperature of 18-22c. Occasionally the water temperature can drop in a smaller body of water after a period of cold weather or heavy rainfall. 16c is quite cold when the swimmer has been in the water for 2 hours. Hence one of the difficulties that swimming across the English channel presents is upwards of 10 hours in 16/17c water. FINA, the governing body actually doesn’t allow competitions when the water drops below 15c.

Taking this information into account, lets turn to winter swimming. Although still Autumn the first proper open water race of the winter swimming season took place on Saturday 22nd of October at the Knize pond in Jicin, Czech Republic. At midday the sun came out and the air was about 15c….the water however was just 9c. (remember, that FINA don’t allow racing in under 15c!) This didn’t stop an amazing 77 swimmers enter for the main 750m race. It took 3 heats and almost an hour to get everyone ouit of the water and all 77 finished without problems, althought there was a little shivering (imagine in January when the water will be just above freezing!).

The course was a sharp 250m circuit with 3 turns to be negotiated 3 times. A high quality field with many fast young swimmers capable of mixing it at international level taking part was great to see, as was the race itself with so many swimmers heading for the first buoy no more than 100m from the start – the desperate scene conjoured up images of great marine beasts such as the walrus, a creature who is often used a metaphor for a winter swimmer! It was the slightly more graceful Jan Stabl of Fides Brno who won this battle and he didn’t relinquish first place for all 3 circuits, taking just 9m 36s to complete 750m, with his clubmate Magda Okurkova taking 2nd in 9m 41s. These 2 were well clear of the rest. The real fight came in the middle of the field with almost half of the swimmers finishing in the 13-16minute time interval.

A fine first open water race of the winter swimming season and those hardy walruses who were outdone by the speedier individuals this time were already muttering about the prospect of colder water, hopefully at the next race in 1 weeks time!