President Milanović Receives Swimmer Dina Levačić and Congratulates her for Swimming across the Cook Strait
The President of the Republic Zoran Milanović received today young long-distance swimmer from Solin Dina Levačić and her parents who have just returned from New Zealand where Dina achieved sensational success by swimming across the Cook Strait, the last one to complete her “Oceans Seven” collection. Thus Dina Levačić has become the youngest long-distance swimmer in the world and the first Croat in history to have completed the famous marathon onr which President Milanović congratulated her.
“Oceans Seven” is a long-distance swimming challenge consisting of swimming across seven open water channels or seven swimming marathons. It includes the North Channel between Ireland and Great Britain, the English Channel between Great Britain and France, the Strait of Gibraltar between Spain and Africa, the Tsugaru Strait in Japan, the Moloka’i Channel in Hawaii, the Catalina Channel in California and the Cook Strait between New Zealand’s North and South Islands.
Dina Levačić and her parents related their experiences to President Milanović in terms of preparing for long-distance swimming, swimming across the seven above-mentioned straits and channels. They also informed him of her swimming plans, namely crossing the Adriatic from Vis to Split. They also discussed funding of Dina’s swimming ventures, and revealed that it is they who cover most of the costs with the help of sponsors who followed Dina. Dina Levačić has been training swimming since the age of four, has been competing since the age of nine. She has been helped by sponsors who are few and far between and a small group of loyal friends who support her ventures and follow her on this path which is by no means easy. The most loyal among them are her parents, her mother Željana and her father Mladen.
Also attending the meeting with President Milanović in addition to her parents Željana and Mladen Levačić was their family friend, Karlo Matić. Alongside President Milanović was the Adviser to the President for Education Jadranka Žarković.
PHOTO: Office of the President of the Republic of Croatia / Marko Beljan