Maldives is the first major race of URX swimming. On the running side, the league has dozens of races behind it, its own leaders and familiar names in every table. In the water, all of that is taking shape right now, and the people swimming Maldives have a rare chance: theirs will be the first names in the history of the swimming league.
The format is simple. Swim 5 km during November in as many sessions as you like; places are decided by average pace. By the morning of 6 November, eleven people had been in the water, with 36.2 km between them. Two have already completed the distance, and two more are almost there.
The first few days were quiet, with one to three swimmers a day. On 5 November everything changed: nine people got in the water and swam more than 23 km in a single day, almost two-thirds of the total so far. After that day, Maldives had both leaders and company.
Men: Frizen finishes on his first day
Evgeny Frizen joined the league on 5 November and swam nine kilometres that same day in two sessions. In the morning he did four kilometres at 1:36 per 100 m, in the evening exactly five at 1:33, so the second swim was faster than the first. His average of 1:35 per 100 m became the first benchmark of the men’s table, and a demanding one: the next-fastest swimmer at Maldives is averaging 1:58.
Ten metres
The closest to the finish is Alexander Oleynikov. He also joined on 5 November, straight away uploaded three swims of roughly a kilometre each, and on the morning of the 6th added another kilometre and a half, his fastest swim yet. His total stands at 4.99 km. He is ten metres from the finish, less than half a pool length. His next session will make him the second man to finish.
Women: two swimmers, one top spot
Elizaveta Nalbandian was the first woman to complete the 5 km. She did it in three swims, each one faster than the last: 2:13 per 100 m on 2 November, 2:01 the next day and 1:56 over the final kilometre on 4 November. After her second swim she wrote: “The workout was hard, but good :)”. So far it is the only caption at Maldives, and it sums up the swimming league’s first week well. Nalbandian’s average is 2:04.
Close behind her is Anastasia Kudelina. She has 4.04 km from four swims at an average of 1:58, and she did her last two kilometres at 1:53 and 1:50. She has less than a kilometre to go, and to take the top spot she only needs to swim it faster than 2:30 per 100 m. The women’s table at Maldives is likely to see its first real contest this week.
Who opened the water
The first person to swim Maldives was Pavel Gavrilov. On opening day, 1 November, he swam 2.3 km, and for several days that was the only swim on the board. He now has 3.42 km, a little over a kilometre and a half from the finish.
Familiar faces from running are helping to launch the swimming league too. A week ago Artur Timerbulatov ran the longest distance of Scary Run, almost 24 km through the Isheevo caves, and on 5 November he swam two kilometres. Veronika Rikhter, runner-up in the same race, swam a kilometre and a half. Running habits seem to work in the water as well: start, come back, finish the job.
Four more have made their first swim. Yury Demichev swam 2.1 km, Yulia Ershova almost two kilometres on the day she joined, Vitaly Gnativ a kilometre and a half, and Denis Podymov 620 metres. Each of them has between three and four and a half kilometres left, and almost all of November to do it.
What’s next
Maldives closes at 23:59 UTC on 30 November, twenty-four days from now. The standings are provisional; official results will be published after the window closes.
In the coming days Oleynikov will swim his last ten metres, and Kudelina is likely to challenge Nalbandian for the top spot. For everyone else, the door is still open. Five kilometres in twenty-four days means five one-kilometre swims, roughly one every five days. There are eleven names on the board right now, and every new one makes the swimming league bigger. The next one could be yours.