The mayor of Benalmádena, Juan Antonio Lara, received today at City Hall the Benalmadena firefighter, Cristóbal Ortega, who in the coming days will once again face the challenge of swimming across the Strait from Tarifa to Morocco, from Las Palomas Island to the Punta Cires Islet. The test has charitable purposes, since it is carried out to raise funds for the Al-andalus Adapted Sports Club.
“Cristobal is going to face a unique challenge in the lives of many swimmers”, a challenge “for which you have to be brave, enduring sharp drops in temperature and without a wetsuit, a test crossing the Strait where everything is unpredictable”, he emphasized. the first mayor In total, Márquez will complete a route that exceeds at least 14 kilometers, which will last more than four hours in the water, “a challenge within the reach of very few that requires courage and strength, but also knowing how to manage the times throughout the entire race.” the test,” added Juan Antonio Lara.
For his part, Cristóbal Márquez has assured that, “if for a climber, climbing Everest is the ultimate, for a swimmer his greatest challenge is crossing the Strait where the Mediterranean Sea fights against the Atlantic.” The test will be carried out without a wetsuit, with “the cold being a constant and unpredictable threat to finishing it”, a challenge that “very few swimmers achieve”.
This firefighter from Benalmádena will be in the water with a team made up of four people, assuming the risks of quickly crossing certain areas “where tunas from the almadraba, orcas or bottlenose dolphins may appear, accompanied by a boat that warns us. If they appeared during the journey, the test would come to an end,” the swimmer stressed.
Together with them, they will navigate a zodiac that will inform them with a blackboard of the data and situations that appear along the way, being able to stop every hour between one and three minutes to eat something, always without being able to hold on to the zodiac.
