Courtesy of Päivi Pälvimäki. Renowned Ice Mile swimmer and Ice Ironwoman Elina Mäkinen is competing in the inaugural Winter Swimming European Championships along with a number of the fastest and most accomplished winter swimmers in the world. The Championships will be held between March 1st – 3rd 2019 at the Spa Hotel Peurunka in Peurunka,

Courtesy of Päivi Pälvimäki, The Outdoor Association of Finland – Suomen Latu, Peurunka, Laukaa, Finland. Päivi Pälvimäki is the Winter Swimming Coordinator for The Outdoor Association of Finland – Suomen Latu. She describes an old winter swimming event in Peurunka, Laukaa, Finland. The inaugural Winter Swimming European Championships will be held between March 1st –

Courtesy of WOWSA, Las Vegas, Nevada. 18-year-old Erica Sullivan of the Sandpipers of Nevada will focus on training for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and will wait for two years to enroll at the University of Southern California until after the next Olympics. Her college coaches, Dave Salo and Catherine Vogt, are supportive of her decision.

Courtesy of WOWSA, Huntington Beach, California. The Sakurajima Kinko-Bay Open Water Swimming Championships (shown on left) has seen up to 242 four-person teams start on Sakurajima volcano and finish in Kagoshima in southern Japan. Many open water swimming competitions are held near volcanoes, active, dormant and extinct. Some of the more well-known volcano swims around

Courtesy of Jim Ritterhoff, FORCE BLUE, Florida. Jim Ritterhoff, co-founder and Executive Director of FORCE BLUE, reported the following activities and achievements of his innovative program that he started with Rudy Reyes. FORCE BLUE give military veterans a chance to learn about and explore coral reefs, one of the most critically endangered ecosystems on the