DUBAI // A charity swim around the Burj Al Arab was all in a day's training for 18-year-old Olympics hopeful Velimir Stjepanovic.
The Serbian swimmer won the Wild Wadi Swim for the third consecutive year as 678 swimmers tackled the 800-metre route around the hotel. About Dh256,000 was raised for the medical charity Doctors Without Borders.
Mr Stjepanovic, who is training for the 2012 Olympics, made it to the finish in 7 minutes and 42 seconds.
"This is my third time at this event but swimming 800m is never easy," he said. "It was quite tiring because the waves kept hitting me. But it kept me close to the Burj so I did not have to swim much."
The event began as a regular training session for the Wild Wadi Water Park lifeguards in 1999, but became a public event in 2001.
"It's all for a good cause," said Haydn Holmes, the water park manager. "While most are out here to compete and for the prizes, a lot of them are here to explore and for sightseeing."
Swimmers competed in the individual and family category and more than 80 lifeguards in white caps were spread out on the route to assist the swimmers.
Geraldine Gibb, 44, said it was an opportunity to meet new people.
"I was a bit slower today at around 14 minutes," she said. "But this is a brilliant cause."
aahmed@thenational.ae
Company%20Profile
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Singham Again
Director: Rohit Shetty
Stars: Ajay Devgn, Kareena Kapoor Khan, Ranveer Singh, Akshay Kumar, Tiger Shroff, Deepika Padukone
Rating: 3/5
Three tips from La Perle's performers
1 The kind of water athletes drink is important. Gwilym Hooson, a 28-year-old British performer who is currently recovering from knee surgery, found that out when the company was still in Studio City, training for 12 hours a day. “The physio team was like: ‘Why is everyone getting cramps?’ And then they realised we had to add salt and sugar to the water,” he says.
2 A little chocolate is a good thing. “It’s emergency energy,” says Craig Paul Smith, La Perle’s head coach and former Cirque du Soleil performer, gesturing to an almost-empty open box of mini chocolate bars on his desk backstage.
3 Take chances, says Young, who has worked all over the world, including most recently at Dragone’s show in China. “Every time we go out of our comfort zone, we learn a lot about ourselves,” she says.
What She Ate: Six Remarkable Women & the Food That Tells Their Stories
Laura Shapiro
Fourth Estate
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The specs
Engine: 3.0-litre six-cylinder turbo
Power: 398hp from 5,250rpm
Torque: 580Nm at 1,900-4,800rpm
Transmission: Eight-speed auto
Fuel economy, combined: 6.5L/100km
On sale: December
Price: From Dh330,000 (estimate)
Itcan profile
Founders: Mansour Althani and Abdullah Althani
Based: Business Bay, with offices in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and India
Sector: Technology, digital marketing and e-commerce
Size: 70 employees
Revenue: On track to make Dh100 million in revenue this year since its 2015 launch
Funding: Self-funded to date
What is an ETF?
An exchange traded fund is a type of investment fund that can be traded quickly and easily, just like stocks and shares. They come with no upfront costs aside from your brokerage's dealing charges and annual fees, which are far lower than on traditional mutual investment funds. Charges are as low as 0.03 per cent on one of the very cheapest (and most popular), Vanguard S&P 500 ETF, with the maximum around 0.75 per cent.
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Biography
Favourite drink: Must have karak chai and Chinese tea every day
Favourite non-Chinese food: Arabic sweets and Indian puri, small round bread of wheat flour
Favourite Chinese dish: Spicy boiled fish or anything cooked by her mother because of its flavour
Best vacation: Returning home to China
Music interests: Enjoys playing the zheng, a string musical instrument
Enjoys reading: Chinese novels, romantic comedies, reading up on business trends, government policy changes
Favourite book: Chairman Mao Zedong’s poems
The specs
Engine: 1.6-litre 4-cyl turbo and dual electric motors
Power: 300hp at 6,000rpm
Torque: 520Nm at 1,500-3,000rpm
Transmission: 8-speed auto
Fuel consumption: 8.0L/100km
Price: from Dh199,900
On sale: now
