They already hosted this year Maksym Moroz (Ukraine), former 2000 European Long Distance Champion, and Gergely Juhos (Hungary), former 2004 World Champion in 400fs and 800fs. Last Saturday, 5th November, program “Geronimo Academy” took in Zagreb two Italian champions: Riccardo Galli, former 2003 European champion in 100fs, and the 3-gold-medals and 3-world-records holder from this year’s World Championship Stefano Figini, maybe the best male finswimmer of the last ten years.

They took part in “Zagreb Finswimming Saturday“, that was split in 4 parts, 2 theoretical and 2 practical. The first lesson started at 8 with Riccardo Galli talking about “sprint technique”: he explained how to save precious time in short distances such as 50 and 100 mt. Later all partecipants moved to the pool where they could practice the tips they heard: in the beginning they watched Galli and Figini showing jumps, turns and finishes, later they did them while being assisted by the two Italians.

In the afternoon Figini held a lesson about planning a season for a middle-distance (200, 400, 800 and 1500 mt.) finswimmer. Program went on with the final part, a not-official competition, where all people could test their skills. It started at 5.30pm and finished at 7.00pm with a 4×100 relay race.

During the 4×100 relay, attendance could watch Galli, Figini, Rubes Levada and Vedrana Deren swimming altogether in an “All Stars” relay. We note that Vedrana arrived twice 5th at World Championship 2011, held in Hungary, which is the best result ever for Croatia in finswimming. Bz the way, during the seminar a short clip of her competitions has been shown so she could finally a public applause, almost 2 months after her finals.

This competition was also the 3rd round of Regional League of finswimming, which is still not an official competition, but undergoing in 2011 a test-period for organizators. First round was held in Niš (Serbia), the second in Bijeljina (Bosnia-Herzegovina), while the fourth will take place next 3rd December a Kecskemet (Hungary), during their Santa Klaus Cup. Regional League includes also training camps, next to be held in January 2012 in Sarajevo – the first was in Banja Vrujci (Serbia), April 2011.

This happening has been organized by Diving Club Geronimo from Zagreb and Zagreb Diving Federation, and for the first time a Geronimo Academy event was open for not members, which were present with more than 80 athletes coming from 7 Croatian and 2 Serbian clubs.

Geronimo Academy will this year go on with other lessons only for RK Geronimo members, but in 2012 there will be another open seminar with other guests, as stated by Rubes Levada, former Italian team member, now finswimming coach in Zagreb and manager of sport teams in RK Geronimo.

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