18th of August was a special day for our Club and many other swimmers in Stockholm. Our coaches participated in open water race Riddarfjärdssimningen.
It was great event in the center of Stockholm, full of positive and friendly atmosphere. And for our club it was amazing team building opportunity. Our girls swam 1609m distance.
Our coaches are the best, even though 2 of them were on holidays and couldn’t attend. And the biggest surprise was 10th place of our Saima in the race. Congratulations! We are so proud. But also proud of Anna and Hoyi of course.
And now we ask our coaches about their experience.
Ho Yi
It was my first time to join a swimming race aboard. I enjoyed it so much! The weather was so nice and sunny. And all people were so cheerful, especially Anna and Saima. Even though we finished the race in different times, they still waited for me at the finished point. I feel like I am doing something as a team. 🙂
I joined similar swimming races in Hong Kong few years ago. But they were so different. In Stockholm, the water is incredible clean. You don’t grab some plastic and have sticky dirt on your body when you are swimming.
I will definitely recommend my friend or someone who likes swimming. Not for competing with others, just enjoying swimming in the open water and the whole experience!
Saima
For me the race was an awesome experience. It was my first open water competition so I didn’t really know what to expect. I did some triathlons when I was 12-13 years old but then the swimming distance was much shorter, only 300 metres.
I was worried before the race because I hadn’t been swimming or even doing any exercise at all during the summer. I was also scared of the amount of people (over 200) that were going to participate. However, I was also very excited to swim because open water race in the heart of Stockholm sounds so cool. Since it was something completely new and different for me, I didn’t have any pressure like I had when I was competing back in Finland. Now it was more like swimming for fun so my only goal was to survive over the finish line. The swimming went really well. We were swimming against the stream so it was obviously harder than swimming in a pool.
Also I had some trouble with orientating and at some point I was not sure if I was going to the right direction. The feeling in the finish was great and I felt even better when I heard that I made it under 30 minutes and placed in top 30 within all participants. It was very funny that they had coffee, chokladbollar and kanelbullar after the race, so a proper Swedish fika. All in all, I really enjoyed swimming in the lake in the middle of Stockholm. It’s super cool that the water is clean enough that this kind of event can be organized in such a big city. I would recommend this experience to everyone and I’m keen on joining next year as well. Maybe I could even do the long distance if I practice some more.
See you next year!
