The 25 km Gaston Memorial Swim is held in the river Labe in the Czech Republic every August.

Gaston was a seal who escaped from the Prague Zoo during the floods of 2002 and swam to Germany. When the Vltava River flooded his tank at the zoo, he swam out and eventually swam more than 300 km from Prague to Dresden, Germany through the Vltava and Elbe rivers. As Gaston was swimming north of Dresden on the fifth day of his escape, he was caught by the animal handlers, but unfortunately died of either shock, exhaustion or injuries (read BBC article here). Gaston was later memorialized with a statue in the Prague Zoo and a 25 km marathon swim.

Jack Bright described the swim, “It is a 25 km downstream river swim from Ústí nad Labem to Děčín where the times are usually similar to a 10 km swim in still water in a lake. The very fast current makes it an adventure with the winner in around 3 hours for 25 km. The organizer is Tomaš Česnek.”

Kate Steels competedin the 2017 event that was won by Renča Ený Nováková, “It was fantastic – I have never swum in such a fast river. Part of the tactics was to sight well to avoid navigation buoys and seek out the fastest current in the river which was not always obvious. I got it wrong in lots of places, especially in the early parts of the race. I literally flew down the river averaging over 7 km per hour.”

The awards for the finishers are cute medals in commemoration of Gaston who is the namesake for one of the World’s Top 100 River Swims. Other open water swimming unique awards include the following:

• Belt buckles at the SCAR Swim Challenge in Arizona, USA
• Conch tropies at the Race For The Conch Eco-SeaSwim in Turks & Caicos
• Walking sticks and woodals at the Kingdom Swim in Vermonte
• Paper crown for Ice Kilometers swimmers at the International Ice Swimmiing Association Ireland National Championships
• For Triple Crowners (English Channel + Catalina Channel + Around Manhattan Island)
• MSF Spork + MSF Navigator Award from the Marathon Swimmers Federation
• Cherrywood plaque for South End Rowing Club members for their North Channel crossing
• For H20PLAY Swim Series winners
• For 2-way North Channel relay from Northern Ireland to Scotland and back to Northern Ireland
• For Hawaiian Christmas Looong Distance Invitational Rough-H2O Swim finishers on Oahu
• For finishers of the Nevis to St. Kitts Cross-Channel Swim
• English Channel award for Shubham Vanmali
• Unique fish awards at the Los Cabos Open Water Challenge
• Rhinoceros trophy for the 8 Mile Charity Club at the Midmar Mile
• North Channel crossing by the Irish Long Distance Swimming Association
• Gaston Memorial Swim awards
• Maratona del Golfo Capri-Napoli finisher timepieces
• Bermuda Four Corners Challenge hydration in Bermuda
• Toyota Aygo at the aQuellé Midmar Mile

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