Skopje, 26 August 2023 (MIA) — All 15 participating swimmers took the plunge near St. Naum on Lake Ohrid at 10 am, marking the start of the 36th Ohrid Swimming Marathon.

According to MIA's Ohrid correspondent, six female swimmers and nine male swimmers are swimming the 25-kilometer marathon down Lake Ohrid to the finish line at the city port.

The Macedonian swimmers Evgenij Pop Acev, Aleksandar Ilievski, Leonid Mishevski, Kristijan Stojanovski, Ivana Nedelkovska and Jovana Nedelkovska are competing alongside two swimmers from Argentina: Érika Jenssen and Matias Diaz; three from Italy: Elena Lionello, Marco Inglima and Alessio Occhipinti; two from Turkey: Tuna Erdogan and Doğukan Ulaç; as well as Marcel Schouten from the Netherlands and Caroline Jouisse from France.

According to MIA's correspondent, the weather conditions are favorable. Swimming in the calm lake water at a temperature of 24 degrees Celsius, the swimmers should take around five hours to reach the finish line, arriving sometime after 3 pm.

The Ohrid Swimming Marathon prize fund is EUR 12,000. The competition is organized by the Municipality of Ohrid with the support of the Agency for Youth and Sports and the Macedonian Swimming Federation. mr/