Adrian Alejandro Wittwer (born 1986) is a Swiss extreme athlete and ice swimmer.

Life

Wittwer lives in Bolligen in the Canton of Bern. As an extreme athlete he participated in

cross country running Cross country running is a sport in which teams and individuals run a race on open-air courses over natural terrain such as dirt or grass. The course, typically long, may include surfaces of grass and earth, pass through woodlands and open cou ...

and marathons as well as extreme swimming. In 2012, Wittwer successfully transversally crossed Lake Constace. In 2013, he tried to cross the longitude of the lake from Bodman-Ludwigshafen to

Bregenz Bregenz (; gsw, label= Vorarlbergian, Breagaz ) is the capital of Vorarlberg, the westernmost state of Austria. The city lies on the east and southeast shores of Lake Constance, the third-largest freshwater lake in Central Europe, between Switze ...

, a distance no one ever completed. He had to abort after 27 of the 64 kilometres because of weather conditions. Through other extreme swimmers Wittwer got into ice swimming and qualified for the Ice Swimming World Championship in 2017. He participated in the WC in 2018 in

Tallinn Tallinn () is the most populous and capital city of Estonia. Situated on a bay in north Estonia, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland of the Baltic Sea, Tallinn has a population of 437,811 (as of 2022) and administratively lies in the Harju '' ...

and won 6th place in the 200m breaststroke competition. In the German Opens in 2018 he qualified for the WC in 2019. In February 2019, Wittwer completed the Ice Mile Challenge, which means swimming a mile in water below 5 °C with only goggles, a swimming cap and swim trunks, in 3 °C cold water in 41 minutes and 46 seconds. He is the first swiss man to complete this challenge. In March 2019 Wittwer won 2nd place in the WC for 50m breaststroke. Wittwer works for the Swiss Military at the department for defence, public safety and sports. In 2017, Wittwer was part of a

NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two No ...

mission to

Kosovo Kosovo ( sq, Kosova or ; sr-Cyrl, Косово ), officially the Republic of Kosovo ( sq, Republika e Kosovës, links=no; sr, Република Косово, Republika Kosovo, links=no), is a partially recognised state in Southeast Euro ...

for 6 months, as part of a peace supporting operation of Swisscoy, He is active for the

Green Liberal Party of Switzerland The Green Liberal Party of Switzerland (german: Grünliberale Partei der Schweiz, glp; french: Parti vert'libéral, pvl), abbreviated to glp, is a centrist green-liberal political party in Switzerland. Founded in 2007, the party holds sixteen s ...

and is part of the volunteer fire department.

References

1986 births Sportspeople from the canton of Bern Living people Swiss male breaststroke swimmers 21st-century Swiss people {{Switzerland-swimming-bio-stub