Creating Infrastructure at the World Winter Swimming Championship in Russian Tura

For the Winter Swimming World Championship in Russian Tura a pool basin was needed that could be implemented without heavy construction equipment. Klyaksa 72, an advertising company, is used to think out of the box and built the basin out of strong PVC mesh. Klyaksa could count on the great service of Olmax and Leister‘s UNIPLAN E hot air welder turned out to be indispensable for creating infrastructure. 

The 10th annual Winter Swimming World Championships was held March 8-12 in Tyumen, Russia. The competition drew 1,275 participants from 42 countries worldwide. Swimmers competed in events ranging from 25’s of all strokes to the 200 freestyle in pool filled with water from the river in Siberia. 

The swimmers had to compete in an open reservoir: a lake, a river, or a bay. One of the largest rivers in the Siberian Tyumen region, Tura was chosen as the venue of the 2016 Championship. It was necessary to build a pool basin, while resolving the following tasks: to ensure the safety of swimmers and compensate the current level of the river. Many options were discussed: from the manufacturing of an aluminum frame to drilling piles - these would be costly projects, the implementation of which would cost a few million rubles. 

Moreover, it was not safe to move heavy construction equipment on the spring ice.

The specialists of the Tyumen company "Klyaksa72", which has extensive experience in installing advertising structures came across an interesting idea - they proposed to make a pool basin from a fiber grid used to produce banners.

For the swimmers‘ safety and to compensate the current level of the river, we decided to make a pool basin from a fiber grid with high quality welding seams. -​Alexander Androsov, Head of Klyaksa72 Company, Russia 

Alexander Androsov, the head of the company, said: "We have extensive experience in solving various problems using non-standard methods, in this case it was important to offer a solution that could be implemented without the use of heavy construction equipment. We decided to make a pool basin of a strong and light reinforced PVC mesh, which has a shallow cell and withstands high breaking loads. We designed and welded a trial model of the bowl, made the installation and our expectations were justified - everything turned out perfectly. The net was screwed to the ice with the help of climbing anchors and froze. The cost of building the pool has decreased several times. The only thing we did not take into account - the grid was pushed back because the current was inflating its bubble. We then solved this problem by applying loads across the perimeter of the grid. At the junctions along the bottom of the pool, we stretched the steel cables, to reinforce the bottom and in case of an emergency, we could quickly pull the bowl onto the ice."

​All in all, we welded 1‘000 linear meters and 800m² of material. It was clear that we would not make any compromises with the quality of the equipment. 

In the process of making the bowl, one of the main criteria was the high quality of welded seams. The unconventional character of the product and high loads were causing concern, so all welding work on PVC material was carried out only by the equipment of the Swiss company Leister.

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Customer: Klyaksa 72 Advertising Company Timofeya Charkova St. 2 Tyumen, Russia http://klyaksa72.ru
Material: Chinese PVC Mesh 340 g/m²
Leister Products: 2x Leister UNIPLAN E 30 mm
Leister Distributor: Olmax Avtozavodskaya str. 25/13 115280 Moskow, Russia www.leister.ru
Text/Photos: Leister AG, Marketing Communications