Swimmers For the Third Mediterranean Peace Route
Courtesy of Dr. Gunes Kibar, Hacettepe Üniversitesi, Turkey.
Dr. Gunes Kibar of the Youth and Sports Club of Hacettepe Üniversitesi is organizing the second Mediterranean Peace Route, a relay swim between the Turkey and Cyprus. He explains, “The aim of the project is to show the brotherhood in the Mediterranean Sea by peaceful sportive activity, and to create a new international open water swimming route.
Six international and six Turkish swimmers will begin to swim from the mainland of Turkey to Cyprus. We want to demonstrate that this sportive activity could bring every nation to be united in peace route.
The Turkish swimmers will be organized by Hacettepe University Youth and Sports Club Master Swimming Team which already completed a crossing of the English Channel and two 91.27 km Mediterranean Peace Routes including from Turkey to Cyprus and from Cyprus to Turkey in the other direction.”
Steven Munatones describes the previous Peace Route, “Erman Akkaya, Temel Yakşi, Nükhet Atilgan, Mehmet Hilmi Soylu, Pelin Çelik, Zafer Özdem, Deniz Kayadelen, Burçak Tümay Pekel, and Murat Meto, ages 33 to 60 swam 91.27 km from Northern Cyprus to the Turkish mainland in 37 hours 30 minutes last year. They pioneered a new relay swim route from Northern Cyprus to the Turkish mainland to celebrate International Day of Peace.“
The possible days of swimming will be on September 21st which is the International Day of Peace or during September 2021. “This time we would like to invite international swimmers from different countries. Our chosen countries include Cyprus, Greece, Russia, Ukraine, England, Germany, Israel, and France,” said Dr. Kibar. “We will have support from the government. We already presented the project six weeks ago and they are glad to support international swimmers.
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