Special Olympics athletes brought a fresh dimension to the European Aquatics Junior Open Water Swimming Championships weekend at Lake Velence, with a competitive open water programme staged in Sukoro alongside the junior action on the opening day of competition in the Hungarian town of Sukoro.

Robert Karoly Rauch led home a fifteen-strong men’s field, consisting exclusively of Hungarian and Slovakian athletes, clocking 13:23.02 to take the win. Akos Vass was next home for Hungary in 13:36.93, with Slovakia’s Peter Ispold rounding out the podium in 14:47.01. Balasz Bite and Mate Varga completed the top five, both inside 15:20, while the pack stretched out behind them, with Andras Keszericze the last of the finishers in 29:16.33.

In the women’s race, Orsolya Megyesi won in 16:22.21, with Zsofia Berczi and Zsanett Szilagyi completing a three-strong podium, all three swimmers representing Hungary.

The Sukoro event was the second of three Special Olympics open water opportunities planned within this year’s European Aquatics Open Water Swimming programme. The series was originally due to open with a leg at Protaras in Cyprus in April, but that event was moved into the pool because of poor water conditions in the sea.

Barcelona will complete the series when it stages the third leg on October 3, having piloted the initiative within last season’s Open Water Swimming Cup.

The programme forms part of the Memorandum of Understanding between European Aquatics and Special Olympics Europe Eurasia, signed at last year’s EA Junior Swimming Championships in Samorin, which commits the two organisations to joint work on development, events, partnerships and communication through to 2028.

Click here for the full results.

Stephen Stanley for European Aquatics