#ARCTIC. #SIBERIA. THIS IS TAIMYR. This championship is also called a cold swim, because the water in the lakes on the Plateau Putorana is never warm in the usual sense. Therefore, the participants had a long and careful training, not just to pass the distance, but, without exaggeration, do not get off it to the finish line in the extremely cold Arctic water.
Cold swimming adherents from Moscow, St. Petersburg, Gatchina, Novosibirsk and Norilsk took part in the swim. According to the organizers, the Norilsk team has significantly increased in skill and the swimmers’ number since the beginning of swimming in the Putorana waters last year.
The stage participants trained with instructors from Moscow, did special gymnastics, yoga, breathing exercises, listened to lectures on hardening before starting.
27 people participated in the swim at different distances. It was a swim of 50 and 100 meters, a kilometer and one nautical mile with 1852 meters length.
If short distances were overcome by participants with a rather modest assessment of their capabilities, then participants with certain sports ambitions went to long distances. A kilometer and a nautical mile require special endurance, fortitude, physique and training. Swimmers had to wear wetsuits for these distances in the not very comfortable Arctic water.
Nine people entered the one nautical mile distance’s start. Swimmers stretched for several tens of meters. Each was accompanied by a boat with a helmsman and an instructor who were ready to help any moment. All observers were instructed on how to recognize an emergency situation and what to do in this case.
“A swimmer may lose control under great physical exertion in an extreme environment, which, undoubtedly, the cold Lama water is, and, for example, start swimming in another direction. Therefore, we recommend all observers ask swimmers simple questions like “Two times two” or something like that at the first suspicion of complications to test swimmers’consciousness”, says one of the X-WATERS Plateau Putorana Championship’s organizers Alexander Bazanov.
Alina Mikryukova from St. Petersburg finished first at the longest distance with a result of 30 minutes 27 seconds. Ivan Gordeychuk from Norilsk covered the nautical mile the fastest among the men.
The awards were received by all the participants without exception. But the winners will also be able to take part in any X-WATERS event of their choice in 2023. And these are swims on Baikal, the Volga, in Vladivostok and in the Crimea.
Earlier we told about the solar-powered camp’s creation on Lama.
Follow us on Telegram, VKontakte.
Text: Denis Kozhevnikov, Photo: author
