Swimming school owner Nikolai Svechnikov was seen mid-race during the Bosphorus Cross-Continental Swim in Turkey, but has since gone missing, with his family and students worried
A Russian swimmer has mysteriously gone missing from the annual open-water Bosphorus Cross-Continental Swim in Turkey.
Swimming school owner Nikolai Svechnikov, 29, was seen mid-race – but organisers now accept he did not finish among all the other 2,800 participants from 81 countries. He did not collect his belongings from his locker at the end of the four-mile race nor return to his hotel as scheduled, say reports.
A major search has so far failed to locate him in the Bosphorus after the event on Sunday. Participants said drowning in the Bosphorus during the event from Asia to Europe is unlikely due to rescue boats monitoring the crossing, yet there are fears that he got into trouble unnoticed.
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Svechnikov, a Russian master of sport in swimming, passed a medical test before taking part. Swimmers wore an electronic bracelet to record the start and finish and his students, who also took part, believe this may have fallen off.
The swimmer’s wife Antonina, 27, flew to Istanbul after he went missing, and is demanding details over which emergency services are looking for her missing spouse. His students said they found it hard to encourage the authorities to start a search for the “strong swimmer”.
“We, three of Nikolai’s students, raised the alarm as soon as the ‘Did not finish’ status appeared,” they said. “The organisers were surprised that we contacted them about his disappearance.
“We demanded that a search be initiated at the state level, since his belongings remained untouched, and this indicates that the man did not return. An hour later, two police officers arrived on a boat, wrote a statement, took personal belongings with an inventory and told us to wait for information from other services.”
A total of 450 Russians took part in the swim. A relative of the missing man said: “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.'”
Earlier this month, the tormented partner of a missing man who was swept out to sea spoke out on her “living nightmare.” Michelle Sigsworth’s partner Matt, 42, from Leeds, praised the “great dad” and called on people to “do a little extra” as they walk along Thornwick Bay cliffs, in North Yorkshire.
The dad-of-two vanished as he went swimming on Wednesday, July 30, but failed to come back “as the weather suddenly turned.” Michelle said: “Because the weather is so rough at the moment, the divers cannot go into some of the caves where he might be.
“They are monitoring the weather but it’s like it’s working against us. That’s the problem we have got. The tide is against us at the moment. It’s a living nightmare. I just need people to do a little extra if they on the cliffs and to keep an eye out for him.”