Winter swimmers converge in Siberia

In the weeks leading up to the third Tyumen Open Cup, which took place on 12-13 December 2014, temperatures in the Siberian town plummeted below minus 30 degrees Celsius. But sunshine and a relative heatwave of ‘only’ minus 12 degrees blessed the event.

The event organisers carved a 25m pool out of the lakeside ice allowing the 292 swimmers taking part to enjoy water of between 0.5 and 0.7 degrees. The swimmers came from 60 different swimming clubs, 34 Russian regions and 18 different countries.
The event was organised in collaboration with the International Winter Swimming Association (IWSA), the Tyumen Winter Swimming Association, the Avtograd Group of Companies, New Decision partners and the Tyumen Region Hardening and Winter Swimming Association Chairman, Aleksey Salmin. Full support was received from the Tyumen Regional Government, the Department for Sport and Youth Development and the Centre for Sports Preparation and Events.
The event followed the standard disciplines for winter swimming championships and opened with the 450m endurance challenge. Melissa Mo O’Reilly from the USA stormed to gold in 7mins:17secs, with Irina Purtova from ‘Yuventa’ Tyumen club and Jaimie Monahan also from the USA both close behind.
In the men’s race, a fierce competition ensued between the Russian swimmer Grigiriy Ermola from the ‘Olymp-K19’ Novosibirsk team, Justin Coetzee from South Africa and Matias Ola from Argentina. The Russian finished first in a swift time of 5mins:48secs.
Day two featured the shorter 25m, 50m and 200m events with some competitors swimming up to six times throughout the day in different categories and relays. Ages ranged from 12 to 78. While many where there for the fun and challenge, a few put in some impressively fast performances:

• Anastasiya Isakova (21) won both the women’s 25m breastroke (19.20 seconds) and the women’s 25m freestyle (14.68s)
• Evgeniy Latyshev won the men’s 25m breaststroke in 16:36s
• Vasiliy Mosin won the men’s 25m freestyle in 11:61s
• Svetlana Lavrentyeva won the women’s 50m breaststroke in 42.24
• Vasiliy Mosin won the men’s 50m freestyle in 25.81s
• Melissa Mo O’Reilly won the women’s 200m freestyle in 2:57.98
• Grigoriy Ermola won the men’s 200m freestyle in 2:21.91

The third Tyumen Open Cup set the stage for the 10th Winter Swimming World Championships which will be held in Tyumen in March 2016, with full support from the IWSA and the growing community of winter swimmers from across the globe.
The UK cold water swimming championships take place on 24 January 2015. Find out more at: http://h2openmagazine.com/news/uk-cold-water-swimming-championships-raise-funds-provide-safe-water-worldwide/