My open-water swimming in SRB-OPEN CUP 2013

Content: Introduction | Final result | Races

This year I decided to participate preferably to all races of SRB-OPEN Cup in open-water (marathon) swimming. In the original calendar this cup consists 13 races of various distances. Basically the races are from 3-5 kilometers, although there are some exceptions, for example race in Novi Becej is 8 km long, while racing in Ovcar Banja 2.1 km (probably due to colder water).
After registering as a masters swimmer (older than 25 years) I waited start the cup.. Even a vacation was so timed to fall on the only weekend of the season when there was not a competition :-)

A brief cup scoring: 1st position carries 200 points, 2nd position 195, 3rd position 190, etc. After 35th place credits are reduced for only one point. Racing length of 7 and 8 km wore 300 points. At the end of the competition, points from best nine races are counted. Who fills all races receive an additional +5%.
About the Cup you can read on official website (on Serbian language) ~~www.pk-marathon.org.rs~~ (moved in 2014 to:
www.openwaterswim-serbia.org.rs ) .

Final result

Eh, I guess this world really belongs to the young swimmers

Races

1. race:

Place: Sombor, 2013.06.16
Length: 4 km
Water: 24°C, clean water, no grass. Channel - 2 km to swim upstream and then back 2 km downstream. Flow rate of the water was approximately 0,7 km/h
My time: 0:58:19,87
My position:
- In age category: 30-45 years, 2nd. position
- Overall position: 11. position
Comment: First weekend in season with perfect weather, sunny, no wind. Real start of the open-water season.

2. race:

Place: Panonija, 2013.07.07
Length: 3 km
Water: lake, app. 24-25°C, buoy on 750 m, 2 laps = 3000 m
My time: 0:42:09,00
My position:
- In age category: 36-40 god, 1. place
- Overall position: 9. place
Comment: perfect weather for swimming, sunny, no waves

3. race:

Place: Bačka Topola, 2013.07.13
Length: 3333 meters
Water: lake, app. 25°C, strong wind and big waves. The swimming path is marked, 4 kruga = 3,333 km
My time: 0:55:04,65
My position:
- In age category: 40-44 god, 1. place
- Overall position: 7. place
Comment: This race is official Serbian Masters championship in open-water swimming. Waves had effect on swimming times, but all swimmers had same conditions.

4. race:

Place: Mol, 2013.07.27
Length: 3,5 km
Water: Tisa river, very hot water, over 28°C, very slow flow rate of river.
My time: 0:55:55,00
My position:
- In age category: 31-40 god, 3. place
- Overall position: 6. place
Comment: Very slow flow rate of river, water temperature too hot. Strong sun shinning made swimming and orientation in the water very difficult.

5. race:

Place: Ovčar Banja (near Čačak), 2013.08.02
Length: 2100 meters
Water: River (Zapadna Morava), water temperature app. 22°C, swimming upstream (but dam stops the river flow during race)
My time: 0:30:40.65
My position:
- In age category: 30-45 god, 1. place
- Overall position: 9. place
Comment: This competition is one of two that are not in Vojvodina. The place is beautiful, surrounded by mountains. The water temperature is typically about 18-19 ° C, but thanks to rearly hot week the water is heated to "even" 22 ° C. From finish to start organizers drive us with a comfortable boat. This is the only race where we had to swim upstream, but during the competition dam stopped the flow of the river during race. There was also a special award for "Best Masters swimmer", where I won my first trophy and a big box of chips :-)

6. race:

Place: Bečej, 2013.08.04
Length: 5 km
Water: Tisa river, warm 27°C, no wind, strong sun
My time: 1:11:01.00
My position:
- In age category: 40-44 god, 1. place
- Overall position: 5. place
Comment: Tisa was very warm with a relatively slow flow. From the finish to the start we were driven with a small open boat, and the trip takes about half an hour, which is a little hard because of the hot sun. Recommendation to organizers, they should provide water and some kind of shadow for the road. The sunny day made this race difficult. Orientation to the water was hard too, practically just last kilometer recognized a pre-remembered landmark.

7. race:

Place: Kaniza, 2013.08.10
Length: official length was 3 km (but in real app. 3,5 km u flowing water)
Water: Tisa river, slow flow
My time: 0:39:56,0
My position:
- In age category: 40-49 year, 1. place
- Overall position: 9. place
Comment: The oldest and most popular marathon in Serbia. In every age category 20 or more swimmers.

8. race:

Place: Apatin, 2013.08.11
Length: 4 km
Water: Branch of the Danube, standing water, buoys on 500 meters, 4 laps = 4 km
My time: 1:10:11,0
My position:
- In age category: 35-50 years, 1. place
- Overall position: 8. place
Comment: Hard, because of race Kaniža which was held the previous day. According to the time of other competitors, the course was a little longer than 4 km, but here it does not matter, we all swam the same length, the only thing it would be good to know the exact distance, purely because of our estimates of swimming speed.

9. race:

Place: Novi Pazar, 2013.08.17
Length: 7 km
Water: crooked lake, about 24 ° C, it is difficult for an orientation
My time: 2:10:09,00
My position:
- In age category: 1 (domination - alone in category 31-40 years :-) )
- Overall position: 7
Comment: This competition is quite different from the others. The long road to Novi Pazar has made even more difficult swimming conditions. The length (instead of planned 7 km), was amounted to nearly 8 km. Very heavy orientation in the water to catch the ideal direction.

10. race:

Place: Krivaja, 2013.08.18
Length: 3 km
Water: Lake, app. 24-25°C
My time: 0:48:42,16
My position:
- In age category: 1
- Overall position: 5
Comment: After the previous day, where I swam over 7 km and 7 hours traveling on the way home from Novi Pazar, this competition was very hard, but 3 kilometers is not much, just to warm up ;-)

11. race:

Place: Novi Becej, 2013.08.24
Length: 8 km
Water: Tisa river, ideal 25-26 ° C, the river quite slow
My time: 2 hours and 1 minute
My position:
- In age category: 1.
- Overall position: 6.
Comment: At the finish I was a bit lost, as I grabbed the wrong direction towards the church. Later it emerged that even four churches can be seen from the water, (I have chosen a church as a landmark direction before the race).

12. race:

Place: Sremska Mitrovica, 2013.08.25
Length: 2 km
Water: river Sava, temperature app. 25°C. Flow quite slow, but still faster than Tisa
My time: 0:21:48,26
My position:
- In age category: 1.
- Overall position: 6.
Comment: Finally this was a river that had some stream (but not too fast). Too bad that Tisa didn't had such a stream on yesterday's 8 km.

13. race:

Place: Bezdan, 2013.08.31
Length: 4 km
Water: Veliki Backi channel, app. 22-23°C,standing water (due to low water levels, the dam was closed)
My time: 1:02:27,0
My position:
- In age category: 1
- Overall position: 11
Comment: Channel, but the dam was closed, the water was fully standing. The water was slightly cooler than the ideal temperature for open water swimming.