9.  Winter Swimming Championships - 2008 in London. The Russian View.
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   The sun was shining. Neatly cut English lawns were radiating green. Only sham icebergs at The Tooting Bec Lido and the Russian style fur cap with ear-flaps on the head of a ceremony presenter showed that the World Winter Swimming Championships was opening in London.

   This international competitions are held once every two years. The idea of such Championships belongs to Finland. The sixth Championships were the first to be held outside Suomi-Finland. The hosts were the South London Swimming Club (SLSC) and the venue was the Tooting Bec Lido in London, the oldest outdoor swimming pool in Europe and the largest of the oldest. Over 670 swimmers from 11 to 80 years old, representing 21 countries took part in the 2008 Championships.

   For instance, in my breast stroke heats there were representatives from  Germany, Finland, Britain and the USA (Hawaii to be precise). Apart from the countries with older winter swimming traditions, you could meet people  from Zimbabwe, Australia, Italy and Kazakhstan competing in Tooting Bec. But anyway more than 300 swimmers came from Finland, about 200 represented the UK, about 40 swam for Russia.

   Before the competitions started we all were introduced to the Championships rules. Here is an extract from this document.
‘With the exception of a hat, swimmers may not wear any additional clothing (e.g. gloves or neoprene socks) or wetsuits even for dipping’

   It is important to mention that the water temperature in Tooting Bec Lido was about +6C (43F). 

   Although the spectators had to pay to get into the Lido that weekend the stands were overcrowded. The performance was worth it! Apart from strength and endurance winter swimmers are famous for cheerfulnessJ.  The atmosphere in Tooting was almost carnival like with a Scottish swimmer diving into the pool wearing traditional skirt, known as a kilt, an Italian had a broad-beam felt hat, and Finns had national symbols on their swimming costumes and faces.

   During the breaks we were chatting with Londoners who came to see the winter swimmers from all over the world. 

   ‘Look darling, these ladies have come to London from Russia to swim in the cold water!’
A girl aged about 5, looked at us very seriously and didn’t share her mother’s surprise. Really, what was strange about that fact!:)

   The official stroke of the winter swimming is the Finnish breaststroke.
‘The Finns decided to make the races ‘head-up’ breast stroke to give the amateurs a chance against the elite,’ explained Margy Sullivan, Vice president of the SLSC.

   If the swimmer applied classical technique in the burst of racing he or she was disqualified. According to the organizers, ‘the championship is less about speed and more about coping with the cold, the challenge of the races and having some fun’. The Brits had let just one retreat from the strict Finnish rules. Apart from the traditional and 100% safe 25 meters race, they took the risk of introducing 60 m freestyle and 450 endurance races.   To participate in the last you had to present a certificate proving that you’ve already completed similar marathons.

   Anyway, according to the Russian winter swimmers even 450 m distance didn’t let them show all their endurance abilities. Our guys used to swim miles and miles in the ice-holes! Russians with the support of Australians initiated 2 km swim. But the initiative wasn’t realized. Endurance is good but the order is more important in Britain.

   Why did London become the capital of the Winter Swimming Championships? To answer this question we need to get to know the history of the Tooting Bec Lido and the SLSC. During the Championships, Janet Jackson, an author of a book called Tooting Bec Lido, told us about the history in a specially arranged lecture hall.  

   Tooting Bec is a district in the South London. The word Lido (Ital. sea shore) was increasingly used for outdoor pools in the beginning of the last century.
   Because one could easily imagine oneself at the sea-side being at the outdoor pool the word lido is still popular in the UK.  Tooting Bec Lido is located in a quiet place among green lawns and the trees and there is no noise from the city. In many respects this oasis appeared thanks to local unemployment. The unemployed inhabitants of Tooting Bec manually dug and constructed the giant pool.  Strikes of the unemployment preceded the construction. So when 400 men started getting paid for their efforts the strikes that preceded the construction of the Lido were over.
   In 1906, the year when the Lido was opened, SLSC was founded and 60 men joined the club. Since that time the club holds races every weekend, even during frosts (information about them is accurately recorded:) In 1931 Tooting Bec Lido opened for ladies. Now there are 500 people in the club – 200 men and 300 women. And everybody is a winter swimmer!
   During the weekend we heard tens of interesting stories from the swimmers all around the world. Lewis Gordon Pugh told about his swim in the North Pole. He traveled there from the Russian port of Murmansk. Julie Bradshaw told us about her butterfly solo crossing of the English Channel. Our friends from Norway, Sarah Jane Hails and Terje Eggum, told us about fjord swims in Norway.

  And now I would like to tell you about the Russian participants of the Winter Swimming Championships 2008.  During the events one of the organizers asked me to write down a list of the cities where the Russians had come from… Moscow, St Petersburg, Murmansk, Blagoveshchensk, Orenburg, Perm, Anapa, Uchali (Bashkortostan), Pechori (Pskov region), Krasnogorsk, Odintsovo, Domodedovo.
   Let’s start   with those who had made the longest journey to get to London. A team of fourteen from Blagoveshchensk headed by Alexander Brilin, the president of Aqua-Ice Sports Federation (winter swimming club for Amur region). Brilin, 31, is the only professional winter swimmer in Russia. He is one of the organizers of the cold water swimming Championships of Siberia and Far East in Teletskoe lake, which attract more than two hundred Russian participants annually. Among his personal achievements is a 60 km marathon in stormy Enisey river. But his main priority is the team work. There are over two hundred members in the Blagoveshchensk winter swimming Federation. They train and swim marathon distances in different parts of Russia all together. 16 year old Lada Kovalevskaya from his team was the second in 60 m freestyle in London World Winter Swimming Championships. Lada’s brother Eric Kovalevsky was the third in the same style race. Sergey Popov won the bronze in 25 m finish breaststroke race. In the international relay races Blagoveshchensk team was the third among the 70 participating teams.
   Russian winter swimming pride is the team from Murmansk. The president for Murmansk Winter Swimming Association is ex-captain of Russian submarine K-19 Oleg Adamov. Most of the members of this club are Russian military officers. The submariners stand for practical use of the winter swimming. According to them, many lives could be saved if cold water swimming training would be regular in the navy. Murmansk Club organizes an annual swim across the Kola Bay called Murmansk mile – 1600 m, average temperature +4 +5 C.  The only girl in the team, Nadezhda Glinskaya, 22 years of age, a finance student, swims in cold water and has done since the age of 7 during polar days and polar nights. Vitaliy Poborchy from Murmansk was third in the freestyle. Vladimir Fomin managed to qualify for the finals and was the fourth in the breaststroke race. Everybody from Murmansk has made the 450 m endurance free style race.
   Family team Vanyurikhin-Stegny from Odintsovo, Moscow region. Anna Stegny, 20, studies foreign languages in the Military University of Moscow. Her father Vladislav Stegny is a surgeon in a military hospital. His wife Tatyana Vanyurikhina, is a nurse in the same hospital. And, a man who delights me, Gennady Vanyurikhin, 73, is a professor of the Moscow State University and an author of several books on creative management.  At the age age of 19, Gennady Vanyurikhin became master of sports (according to Russian qualification). He participated in the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in Moscow, 1980, when he carried the Olympic flame in a relay race. He also has sports grades in mountain climbing, has twice successfully climbed to Elbrus (for the first time in 1952) and to Kazbek mountains. Last year he skied from the Elbrus. Despite all his achievements he is just a beginner in the winter swimming.
   ‘My kids inspired me. For the first time I swam in the cold water in a relay race for a Moscow region team. And now I am in the World Championships’,  smiles Gennady Vanyurikhin.

   The Krasnogorsk team in the Championships in London included Natalia Zaderey, Irina Proskurina and me, Antonina Frolenkova. We all met for the first time during a 100 km marathon relay race in one of the Moscow ice holes. Now there are more than a hundred swimmers in our team. We have swum cold water marathons on Seliger lake, Baikal lake, Teletshkoe lake, Volga river, Kola Bay, Sogn fjord (Norway), Sungari river (China). In the time free from winter swimming, Natalya Zaderey, 26, specializes in political science, writes her thesis  and teaches Chinese language in the People’s Friendship University in Moscow.  Irina Proskurina, 25, writes her thesis on the problems of ground water pollution and teaches in the Chemistry and Technology University in Moscow.

   No winter swimming Championships work without water performances. The Little Swans Dance performed by Moscow winter swimmers has won the second prize. Where are the roots of our friends’ artistic talents?
   Vasily Smirnov, professional driver, worked as a taxi driver and as a private driver for Russian movie stars, one time he even worked with Fransis Coppola during one of the festivals in Moscow. The rest of this team are Usman Sadekov, ex-policeman and Boris Gafner, an engineer and entrepreneur. The swans regularly appear on Russian TV and newspapers they train in a swimming pool together.

   A brave lady from Uchaly Nazima Mugafarova left her grandchildren in Bashkortostan and came to London on her own. She has successfully swum a 450m marathon in Tooting. Another Vladimir Sukhorukov, had come to London from Pechori, Pskov region hitch-hiking half of his way.

   In Britain Russian winter swimmers have finally met in person Alla Cassidi, the first Russian amateur swimmer who had swum the English Channel. All of us were her fans and we sent her our support during her swim last summer.

   In London we have become friends with the Slovakian team. ‘You know Slovaks still don’t travel to Russia very often. But I would like to visit you now’, told us Helena Selepakova. Wonderful result for a Winter Swimming Championships.  

   At the end of the London Championship Blagoveshchensk team captain appeared with his usual trick.
   ‘Now Alexander Brilin will swim the full length of the pool holding the Russian flag in his arms,’ announced the presenter.
  And Brilin swam 80 meters with the Russian tricolour. Our team was screaming: ‘Rossiya!’
  ‘You’re very patriotic.’ noticed the SLSC president Finbarr Martin. ‘Patriotism leads to wars.’
   ‘Patriotism leads to the healthy life style in our case’ we smiled.

   There was an announcement made in Tooting Bec that the next Winter Swimming Champs will be held in Slovenia. Yes, winter swimmers will have to compete again without any ice and snow! In response to this announcement someone from the audience inquired when we are going to the polar bears region.  To polar bears or ordinary bears, but the World winter swimming Champs must be held in Russia one day.  It would be not bad to hold in 2012.

 Antonina Frolenkova

 London-Moscow, 2008

 Photo: Ray Fowler, Natalia Zaderey 

 Thanks to Ray Fowler for editing this text