Romania won 35 medals at the Ice Swimming World Championship, organized by the International Ice Swimming Association (IISA) between January 13 and 19, in Molveno, Italy. Eight of the medals won are in the general classification.
According to a Facebook post by the president of the Romanian Ice Swimming and Open Water Association, Paul Georgescu, of the eight medals won by Romania in the general classification, two are gold, two silver and four bronze, to which are added another 27 obtained in the classification by age categories - ten gold, nine silver and eight bronze.
"Romania has proven once again that it remains one of the strongest teams in this discipline. (...) More and more countries with which we compete on equal terms, France, Germany, Poland, belong to and are financed by specialized federations, while in Romania ice swimming is not yet officially recognized as a sporting branch," mentioned Georgescu.
At the 6th edition of the Open Water world Swimming Championship in Italy, the Romanian team was formed by 20 performance athletes or amateurs aged between 17 and 52.
At the event organized by IISA, athletes from 35 countries were present.
IISA was founded in 2009 and "invented" ice swimming, this sport, considered extreme, involving swimming in water with a temperature of less than 5 degrees Celsius, with only a silicone helmet, a pair of goggles and a standard swimming suit. The association has established a comprehensive set of safety rules for athletes, and there are world records after official competitions. Currently, the association has members in 73 countries, and in 43 of them, including Romania, there are swimmers who have swum at least one kilometre. The association's objective is to introduce swimming in frozen waters into the category of winter Olympic sports. AGERPRES