In a natural paradise beneath Slovenia’s snow-covered Julian Alps, the enchantingly beautiful Lake Bled hosted the 13th Winter Swimming World Championships. Organiser IWSA promised swimming in a winter fairy tale and crystal-clear water. Bled also has a long swimming tradition stretching back to the nineteenth century, when cold water was already used therapeutically at the lakeside spa.
The races took place from 24 to 28 January 2023, bringing together hundreds of swimmers from thirty-one countries on five continents. I. PKO Praha was there, along with fellow Czech Winter Swimming Cup competitors: a large FIDES Brno team and swimmers from OPp České Budějovice and DZP Haná Prostějov. Our club’s contingent comprised seven swimmers.
Thanks to its spring-fed inflows, Lake Bled does not freeze even in January. For those of us raised on the Czech Cup’s harsh conditions, the 5.6°C water felt pleasant. The championships opened with the prestigious 1,000-metre open-water race on the lake. It offered a chance to watch outstanding swimmers. One of today’s stars, Alisa Fatum from Leipzig, finished in under twelve minutes, setting a new women’s world-best winter-swimming performance over the distance. Legendary American veteran Scott Lautman, who swam on the national team alongside Mark Spitz in his younger days, also delighted spectators. Drawing on our domestic Cup experience, I. PKO Praha took home a complete set of medals from this blue-riband kilometre event! Petr Hensel won his age group ahead of Ivan Lalák in second. In another age group, Jaroslav Zeman took bronze, navigating the closing metres skilfully and holding off a pursuing rival. Brno’s swimmers also performed superbly over our favourite kilometre: Radomír Suchopa and Jana Matuštíková won their age groups. Our familiar Czech Winter Swimming Cup rival Richard Nyáry from Slovakia won as well.
The following three days featured individual races in a floating 25-metre pool on the lake. The longest pool event was the 450 m freestyle, in which Ivan Lalák won his age group. Other events ranged from 25 to 200 metres in freestyle, breaststroke and butterfly. Petr Hensel was our star in the pool. In a breathtaking 200 m breaststroke race, he narrowly beat his great rival Petr Mihola to become age-group champion. Their rematch at the Czech Championships in Podolí in March should be interesting! Petr Hensel also won the 200 m freestyle, collecting seven individual medals altogether. Bernard Nizet was another highly successful club swimmer, winning four bronze medals across all the freestyle distances from 50 to 450 metres. Jaroslav Zeman again swam brilliantly, taking bronze in the 200 m freestyle. Marek Švejda competed in the fiercely contested 45–49 age group and held his own, giving everything in the 200 m breaststroke to win bronze. We also cheered on friends from other Czech clubs, and they did not disappoint: every participating Czech club won medals. The championships website lists eighty-five clubs that scored in the individual events at this year’s Winter Swimming World Championships in Bled.
I. PKO Praha finished fifth overall with seventeen medals: four gold, three silver and ten bronze. A top-five finish certainly ranks among the club’s achievements. It was also lovely to discover in Bled that I. PKO Praha is well known and highly regarded among swimmers from around the world!
International relays are held on the final day. We formed a team from members of our club’s English Channel relays: Marek Švejda of Czech Lions, and Ivan Lalák and Petr Hensel of Czech Youngsters 60+. Joined by Eva Ležovičová from Vitale Trnava, we created a joint Czech–Slovak team for Bled called Czechoslovak Swordfish. We gave it everything one last time and, to our surprise, won both the 4 × 25 m breaststroke and the 4 × 25 m freestyle against strong opposition in our category. The international relays are a social occasion and an exciting finale to the championships. Changing rooms packed with hundreds of swimmers are alive with colour, cheerful hats and good humour. After anchor swimmer Marek Švejda collected the gold, we celebrated with Bled’s local speciality, kremšnita cream cake. Then we headed home over the snowy Alpine passes. On the way, we followed the Branické ledy results — some truly hardy swimmers had managed to compete in both Bled and Branické ledy!
Finally, we would like to thank Zuzana Pátková and Ivan Landa for cheering us on, even though illness kept them out of the water at the 2023 Bled World Championships. Ivan Landa had already shown his class three years earlier, reaching the podium over the longest distance at the 2020 Bled championships.
See you by the water!
Ivan Lalák