Nikolai Svechnikov, a Russian swimmer, 29-year-old, has gone missing during an open-water race in Turkey. Nikolai reportedly failed to reach the final line of the 6.5km Bosphorus Cross-Continental Swim on Sunday night, which had more than 2800 athletes competing from 81 countries.
Organizers told the Russian state agency RIA Novosti that he may have suffered fatigue, a cramp or been carried off by currents, while relatives insisted he was in good health and had trained for months.
The Bosphorus is a natural strait in Turkey that connects the Black Sea to the Sea of Marmara, dividing the city of Istanbul and forming the continental boundary between Europe and Asia.
Much chaos has ensued since. The swimmer’s friend has been quoted by RIA Novosti as saying that the first stage of the search began only two hours after the end of the competition: “Nikolai arrived in Istanbul to participate in the swim. His wife wrote to me at 17:00 that Nikolai still had not arrived. No one took any action until 16:00, they started searching from that time.”
Nikolai Svechnikov’s wife has also reportedly flown out to Turkey to seek help from the Russian embassy. “The coast guard told me verbally: Be assured, all services are searching for Nikolai. I cried and begged them to show me video footage or a search point. They just took my number and repeated: ‘Don’t worry, we’re looking for him,’” a relative told RIA Novosti.
