Avram Iancu, the librarian from Petrosani who swam the Danube River without neoprene suit, being the first man to ever cross the river from the place where it originates to the place where the river empties into the Black Sea, wants to set new world record, planning to swim over 600 km from Sulina to Istanbul for 50 days.
The 42-year-old librarian from Petrosani, Hunedoara county, will start the race on Sunday, saying it is a follow up of the swimming Danube project of last year. Last year, he swam 89 days on the Danube, while vowing to swim another 50 days this year.
He came up with the idea of swimming on the Danube river after reading “the Danube Pilot” novel wrote by Jules Vernes. He left on June 20 from Donaueschingen, Germany, and forced himself to swim 50 kilometres a day with no helper and protection material.
He will swim with no neoprene suit also this time, wearing just a normal bathing suit, swim goggles and a swimming cap, just like when he broke the Danube swimming record.
His family, but also anyone in the world will be able to track Avram Iancu while swimming. „It will interactive, anyone will be able to permanently track my position in the Black Sea, the running speed, through a modern tracking system. No one has ever swum so much in the Black Sea, there are about 630 kilometres, the distance from Sulina to Istanbul, you can consider it a national and world first. It is important though to cross all the Romanian shore, the entire Bulgarian coast and Turkey’s European side up to Istanbul,” Iancu stated.
The librarian of Petrosani is also known to have crossed the English Channel on August 30, 2016, without wearing a neoprene suit, at the end of a continuous effort of 17 hours and 54 minutes in which he travelled 62 kilometres. He was the first Romanian to set this record.