SUMMARY OF THE PROJECT
The main objective of the project is to improve and promote the year-round physical activity through open water swimming (OWS) by sharing of knowledge between the relevant partners from three EU Mediterian countries (Italy, Slovenia and Craoatia).
Through this goal, this project offers future year-round open water swimmers with a healthy lifestyle, using a synergistic effect because:
– swimming enables lifelong physical activity (it is known that babies can swim before they could walk, and that people even older than 100 are and can be engaged in swimming)
– swimming in the sea has an additional thalasotherapeutic effect on health
– cool/cold water (northern Mediterranean, from October to April and another 2-3 months longer for EU countries with the coast in the Atlantic and Baltic) provides an additional positive health effect on swimmers
– swimming in the Mediterranean, Atlantic or Baltic outside the so-called summer season allows recreational swimmers who do not have the opportunity to use the pool (eg islands, smaller seaside villages …) to swim and recreate, even train throughout the year, or at least to extend the swimming season
– recreational swimming, especially recreational swimming in the so-called cool water, erases all differences in age and sex of swimmers
The entire program is based on activities and competitions aimed mainly at recreational swimming but also to cover the elite swimming sport. Namely, national OWS clubs and national federations are focused on open water swimming during the “OWS season” with seawater (open water) temperature over 20°C. For the rest of the year (6-8 months), training sessions are exclusively conducted in swimming pools.
To achieve the expected goals, this two-year project is operationalized through approximately 20 online meetings and five transnational meetings related to one OWS demonstration event in the cold sea, two existing ones in the summer season and two pilot OWS events in the cool/cold sea.
– Objectives: The main objective of the project is to improve the year-round physical activity through open swimming (OWS) by sharing of knowledge between the relevant partners. Specific objectives are: 1. To create a networking opportunity for the relevant stakeholders to share their knowledge and practices related to the OWS as a year-round physical activity. 2. To increase the number of open water
swimmers who will be year-round active as swimmers in open water emphasizes seawater. 3. To educate swimmers to become more aware
of the benefits of year-round swimming in open water, especially in seawater
– Activities: The objectives will be achieved by creating and sharing a new model of transmitting and sharing the experiences of those
responsible for organizing swimming training processes and events. Namely, national OWS clubs and national federations are focused on
open water swimming during the “OWS season” with seawater (open water) temperature over 20°C. For the rest of the year (8-9 months),
training sessions are exclusively conducted in swimming pools. The entire program is based on activities and competitions aimed mainly at
recreational swimming but also to cover the elite swimming
– Persons benefiting from the projects are: OWS clubs stakeholders, recreative and elite OW swimmers, swimmers without the possibility of
using swimming pools, all who want to contribute to their health
– Expected results: The project will contribute to the development of the European dimension in recreational and elite OWS activity, creating
and sharing a new model of transmitting and sharing the experiences of those stakeholders responsible for organizing OWS clubs and
events
– Outputs: All meetings of the partners are prepared for presentations, which will be organized for the representative of the clubs and
national federations of partner countries where the meeting is held at the time. The final output is the online manual for organizing OWS
events in cool/cold water