Several members of the Bronx Polar Bears club went overseas to Latvia to compete in the World Winter Swimming Championships 2012, and made the borough proud.
Members of the Bronx Polar Bears including Michael Max Knobbe who is also the executive director of BronxNet, Valdis Freimanis, Lega Freimanis and Raitis Abele, and others joined over 1,129 competitors from all over the world, and appeared to be one of the only teams of swimmers from the United States to be represented during the competition, Knobbe said. The event took place in the Lielupe River in Jurmala, Latvia, from Friday, January 20 to Sunday, January 22.
Valdis Freimanis was one of the original founders of the Bronx Polar Bears, after he was encouraged to help form the organization after running into Knobbe at a Coney Island polar bear swimming event, Knobbe said. Freimanis lives in the Latvian Welfare Society house at 115 W. 183rd Street, immigrated to the United States in 1992 from Latvia, and has been swimming in chilly water since 1976, he said. Cold water is part of his daily ritual, as it is for many Latvian swimmers, he said.
“We put out buckets of cold water at night and they start to freeze and then pour that water on our bodies in the morning, and it is refreshing,” Freimanis stated through a translator. “You really want to have below freezing temperatures on your body to get the full effect because the water is actually better if it is colder and freezing.”
One of the principal differences between what these members of the Bronx Polar Bears are doing and what and other polar bear clubs throughout the United States do as opposed to Europe, is they are going beyond the experience of simply running into cold water as American polar bear events tend to emphasize. Instead, they are competitively swimming, Knobbe stated.
“In Europe, they are doing competitive swimming and in the Unites States it is just about a good feeling, with people celebrating together in the water,” Knobbe said. “
The group that included members of the Bronx Polar Bears competed in three different events in icy cold water, including 25- and 50-meter sprints, and a 450-meter endurance swim, Knobbe stated. Right now, Latvia is experiencing a harsh winter, with temperatures dropping to minus 20 degrees Celsius, Freimanis stated.
As for the Bronx Polar Bears, one of the organization’s signature events occurred at Orchard Beach on Saturday, February 18. Now the group that headed to Latvia is planning to compete in the World Winter Swimming Championships 2014, to be held in Rovaniemi Lapland, Finland.
