Born:  06 February 1985
Gender: Man
Country: France
Crossing Year: 2019
Time: Out Of Ranking (05 h 50 min 46 sec)
Neoprene swimsuit: YES

I am Turkish, raised playing on the shores of the Aegean and Marmara seas.

When I was a child I had the good fortune to spend a lot of time at the beach, playing with sand castles, looking for small animals and swimming, which was good for me even though I wasn’t doing it as an agonist.

Only when I was a university student I started to swim in a more structured and regular way. So much so that swimming has always been present in the places where I lived: Finland, Portugal and France.

Just moving to Nice seven years ago was the turning point for my swimming experience. In the south of France people are “dependent” on nature and sport. I met so many stimulating people, of the IronMan who run 145 kilometers and swim between continents.

5 years ago I met Karina Bruwer at the event in Bergeggi (Liguria), a swimmer who inspired me to try to make long distances like the Bocche di Bonifacio. Of course at that time I thought it was beyond my ability, but I kept swimming over longer and longer distances.

This year a dream becomes reality, I will try to swim in the Strait between Corsica and Sardinia. I hope Poseidon is merciful in this adventure and challenge. I am happy to be among the participants of the Gran Fondo Bocche di Bonifacio and to be able to say that I was there and I tried, regardless of the result.

(Orkun Ozen, September 2019)