3rd Ice Swimming World Championship in Murmansk – preparations
This article is part of the series “2019-03: Redex Murmansk”.
I was in Murmansk with Barents Press with a project called Redex 2019. The project goal is to establish contacts between sports journalists and exchange experiences.
Thursday, 14 March
Tomorrow, 15 Mars 2019 the 3rd Ice Swimming World Championship will start. 400 swimmers from 33 countries will participate in this competition and will swim distances up to 1000 metres. The event is organised by the IISA and the town of Murmansk.
The first contact to this event we got yesterday, 13 March in the swimming bath. We met Davaadorj Shagdarsuren, a professional swimmer from Mongolia and only participator of his country. His traditional clothes were really eye-catching and according to himself much too warm for Murmansk. He’s more used to winter temperatures between -35 °C and -50 °C.
Later we had an appointment with Irina Andreeva, leader of the municipal Sport Committee and member of the organising committee. She gave us interesting details about the ice swimming championship and the organisation.
When we went back we passed the Five Corners Square we heard loud music. There a rehearsal for the closing ceremony was in full swing. Heroic music sounded from the PA system and young people were marching to it with huge flags. Half of them in some kind of winter uniforms and flags with the logos of the IISA, the city of Murmansk and Аспол, the association of polar explorers. The others with the national flags of all participants. A nice gesture to all countries. I have however to admit that such kind of parade looks quite odd from my German-Swedish perspective. I’m not used to marching and parading.
Today at 1 o’clock was the press conference for the championship. It hold place in the hotel Azimut. 13 officials talked a bit about the event and invited the journalists to ask questions. Since there came hardly any question they started to ask each other instead. Quite funny situation.
After that we got our press accreditations. Now I have a press badge and I’m quite curious how freely I’m allowed to move the next two days to take pictures of this event.
2 comments to “3rd Ice Swimming World Championship in Murmansk – preparations”
Johanna 2019-03-17 22:44
Finde es super , dass Deine Fähigkeiten als Fotograf so wertgeschätzt werden
und Du eingeladen wirst bei dieser Journalisten-Delegation .GLÜCKWUNSCH
Olaf !
way-up-north 2019-03-18 10:33
Johanna, ich bin unter anderem wegen meines Interesses für Winterschwimmen mitgekommen. Als Fotograf im Bereich Journalistik bin ich Anfänger.