Cross-Balaton Swim with Over 11,000 Participants

Two national team swimmers, Luca Vas and Imre Barabás, were the fastest at the 40th Balaton Crossing on Central Europe’s largest lake on Saturday. The event saw a record number of people participating.

According to the organizers, Vas won the women’s competition at the 5.2-kilometer distance between Révfülöp and Balatonboglár in one hour, six minutes and 19 seconds, while Barabás came in first in the men’s race with a time of 1:02:46. Participants came from 1,073 municipalities in Hungary, while nearly five hundred swimmers from 43 countries competed from abroad.

The classic distance was again 5.2 kilometers, which could also be covered by SUP, but there was also a half distance race of 2.6 kilometers. 9,835 swimmers took part in the classic contest, 985 in the half distance and 458 in the SUP event.

A total of HUF 5.5 million was raised for the five charity events of the Balaton Crossing.

After about 500 meters of swimming, one of the participants, a 51-year-old man, climbed out onto one of the sailboats accompanying the swimmers because he felt unwell. He then lost consciousness. The skipper of the boat immediately alerted the emergency rescue boat, which arrived quickly, but by then the man had lost circulation and pulse.

An initial shock from the defibrillator was successful and the swimmer was then lifted from the sailboat onto the emergency rescue boat and handed over to the National Ambulance Service on shore. The man was taken to hospital in a stable condition.