Mariia Yrjö‐Koskinen

Country: Finland

Contribution Resume

The International Winter Swimming Association (IWSA) officially started in 2006 – but some background:

The tradition of sauna and “dipping” into a hole in the ice is long established in Finland and Mariia’s childhood include the same at their county home. She attended her first winter swimming event (Finnish Winter Swimming Championships) in 2002. She organized her local club to host the 2005 event to celebrate the 400 Anniversary of the City of Oulu and arranged significant support from the City Council and launched a marketing campaign.

This drew a team of 20 from the South London Swimming Club. The success (1,200 swimmers) together with the international flavor drove her club to arrange the Winter Swimming World Championships 2006 and market the event actively in Belarus, Estonia, Latvia, Russia and UK.

The 2006 event drew many swimmers (including Lewis Pugh) and significant television, newspaper, magazine and social media attention. For the first time the included freestyle as a discipline – which was critical to the development of the sport. Mariia then assembled an international Board of Directors and the International Winter Swimming Association (IWSA) was established in 2006. The South London Swimming Club was then inspired to organize a 2006 event in London – the first UK Cold Water Championships.

The IWSA has taken off from there (with Mariia as President).

The IWSA Winter Swimming World Championships continue to grow:

·       2008 London 680 swimmers

·       2010 Lake Bled Slovenia 980 swimmers

·       2012 Jurmala Latvia 1,129 swimmers

·       2014 Rovaniemi, Finland 1,244 simmers

·       2016 Tyumen, Russia 1,275 swimmers,

·       2018 Tallinn, Estonia 1,366 swimmers and 800 at the gala dinner

From 2015/2106 the IWSA organized an annual World Cup. In the 2017/2018 season this attracted 1,456 swimmers (842 male and 614 female) – representing 40 countries. The swimmers ranged in age from 9 to 90!

The IWSA has also been organizing winter swimming in the Springs Festival in Jinan, China (population 6 million) China for seven years with a future plan for an annual World Cup Competition. As part of this cooperation, Mariia was named as a Promotional Ambassador to Jinan Tourism 2017‐2019.

Mariia was present in 25 countries while representing IWSA: Argentina, Belarus, Belgium, Canada, China, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Latvia, Norway, Poland, Russia, Scotland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Turkey. UK and USA.

Other Considerations

Mariia also swims in IWSA events (podium finishes) and participated in the Bering Strait Relay. She also started the first ever (summer not ice) Finnish Open Water Swimming Championships in the City of Hämeenlinna in 2010 – which has continued annually.