Elite Open Water Challenge Swimming
Setúbal is on the international route of open water swimming when it receives, on the 27th and 28th of May, the third stage of the World Cup circuit, with 59 elite athletes, including five Portuguese swimmers.
The Sado River once again challenges the world's open water swimming elite in the third stage of the Open Water Swimming World Cup 2023, in which 30 men and 29 women participate, representing 18 nations, and which takes place, as usual, from of the Urban Park of Albarquel.
Among the swimmers of this demanding aquatic modality with a confirmed presence in the Setubal stage of the Open Water Swimming World Cup circuit is the Hungarian Kristof Razofsky, current Olympic runner-up and with several medals won in world cups.
In the competition to be held in the waters of Sado, the Frenchman Axel Reymond, two-time world champion over 25 kilometers, the Dutch Sharon Van Rouwendaal, runner-up at the Tokyo 2020 Games and champion in Rio 2016, and the German Leonie Beck , multi-medal athlete who leads the current world tour.
The Portuguese team is also present in Setúbal for the third stage of the Open Water Swimming World Cup, with an armada led by the experienced Angélica André, bronze medalist in the last Europeans in Rome, joined by swimmers Mafalda Rosa, Mariana Mendes, Tiago Campos and Diogo Cardoso.
The world open water swimming event over a distance of 10 kilometres, organized by World Aquatics, the Portuguese Swimming Federation and Setúbal City Council, starts at 16 pm on the 00th with the men's event, which follows, ten minutes later, the female competition.
There is also, on the 28th, at 15 pm, a relay event over a distance of six kilometers in which four international teams participate, including a quartet of four Portuguese swimmers, to be held in a circuit of four laps of 30 meters in front of the Urban Park of Albarquel .
Also noteworthy is the return of open swimming competitions at the Open Water Swimming World Cup Mass Participation Event, on the morning of the 27th, with competitions in the distances of 200 meters, at 10:00 am, 600 meters, at 10:30 am, and two kilometers, at 11:30 am.
About three hundred swimmers are expected at the Mass Participation Event, organized by the Portuguese Swimming Federation with the Setúbal City Council, which is part of the national open water swimming circuit and seeks to promote this aquatic modality.
The Setubal stage of the Open Water Swimming World Cup takes place in a riverside area of excellence integrated in a territory with exclusive natural characteristics, which provide all the conditions for holding the important international competition.
In addition, the organizational capacity and quality of the municipality and the Portuguese Swimming Federation, which mean that Setúbal is, year after year, on the route of this modality, both in the realization of stages of the world circuit, as well as in Olympic qualification events, which, in this case, it occurred in 2012, 2016 and 2021.
The 2023 circuit of the Open Water Swimming World Cup started in Egypt, with competitions on the 8th and 9th of May in Baía de Soma, continued in Italy, on the 20th and 21st in Golfo de Aranci, and, after Portugal, with a stage in Setúbal , continues in France, on the 5th and 6th of August in Paris, culminating in Israel, on the 1st and 2nd of December in Eilat.
