Founder & expertise
Rubes Levada
Athlete, coach and sport leader: more than thirty years in finswimming, from the Italian national team to founding clubs in Zagreb and helping new countries start the sport.
Born in Bologna in 1978 and based in Zagreb since 2007, Rubes Levada holds Italian and Croatian citizenship. He started finswimming in 1992, raced for Italy at junior and senior level, and has coached since 2001, from beginners to world champions. With a master's degree in Business Economics from the University of Bologna, he has written and managed EU-funded sport projects since 2018 and mentors new finswimming organisations in Europe and Africa.
Athlete
Rubes began at the finswimming school of CN Universo Bologna (today Record Team Bologna) in 1992, joined its first team and, in 1994, the Italian junior national team. He raced for Italy until 1999, then turned to coaching in 2001. In Croatia he raced again for Geronimo Zagreb from 2007 to 2009, and still competes as a masters athlete.
- 1998 World Championships, Cali (Colombia): team world champion with Italy; silver, 4×200 m relay; 7th, 400 m surface
- 1999 European Championships, Greece: silver 4×200 m relay; 6th 400 m; 7th 200 m
- 1997 European Championships, Montpellier (France): silver, 4×200 m relay
- 1997 World Games, Lahti (Finland): bronze, 4×100 m and 4×200 m relays
- 1994 European Junior Championships, Hungary: silver, 4×100 m relay
- Masters: 2015 Masters World Cup, Ravenna (gold 100 m, silver 50 m surface); 2020 European Masters, Lignano (silver 100 m surface)
- Italian Gold Medal for Athletic Valour (Medaglia d'Oro al Valore Atletico)
Coach
- 2001–2006, Record Team Bologna: under-13 team. Among his young finswimmers were Davide De Ceglie and Noemi Melotti, later open-water world champions (2013).
- 2007–2022, Geronimo Zagreb and Zagreb Diving Federation: finswimming coach, professional coach of the federation from 2009. Geronimo became Croatian club champion in 2011.
- 2008–2009, Croatian national teams: senior team coach at the 2008 European Championships (Hungary), junior team coach at the 2009 European Junior Championships (Serbia).
- Since 2011, Komet; since 2017, Novi Jelkovec: founder and head coach. Komet became Croatian club champion in 2016.
- Qualifications: FIPSAS (Italian Federation of Underwater Activities) Level 1 Instructor and Level 2 Master Coach (2012), qualified to teach coach courses; recognised in Croatia by the Croatian Olympic Academy (2007) and the Ministry of Tourism and Sport (2018).
Notable athletes: Filip Strikinac, coached from 2016 to early 2022, world champion in the 50 m surface in 2022; Kristijan Tomić, world silver medallist in 2016, when Adrijan Omićević also reached two world finals; Dora Bassi, European silver medallist in the 50 m surface in 2019; Vedrana Deren, world finalist in 2011 and European finalist in 2008 and 2012.
Sport leader
| Year | Milestones |
|---|---|
| 2008–2010 | Organises the Croatian national championships and the first under-13 championships; becomes a professional coach and starts the Geronimo Academy. |
| 2011 | Founds Finswimming Team Komet and the Zagreb Finswimming Saturdays, with guest coaches from Italy; develops twin clubs in Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. |
| 2012–2013 | Zagreb Finswimming Saturdays with guests from Italy and Hungary; Open Croatian Championships; finswimming clinic in Barcelona. |
| 2014 | Develops a finswimming team in Sarajevo and leads Bosnia and Herzegovina at the 1st CMAS University Competition; co-founds Solna Sharks in Sweden (swimming, finswimming and triathlon). |
| 2015 | International training camp in Kikinda (Serbia); European Week of Sport partner of the Croatian Ministry of Sport; Zagreb Weekend of Water Sports with more than 160 finswimmers. |
| 2016–2017 | Komet wins the Croatian club championship; organises the Croatian championships (122 competitors), the club championship and a round of the Croatian long-distance cup. |
| 2017 | Founds Finswimming Team Novi Jelkovec. |
| 2018 | First Erasmus+ Sport project as coordinator: Aurora, on dual careers. |
| 2019–2020 | Clinic in Alicante (Spain), international camp in Tunisia; partner in the EHPARP project on modern pentathlon. |
| 2021 | Aurora Adriatic (coordinator), SPOT and Inclusion through Sport; supports the start of finswimming organisations in Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda; East Africa bootcamp in Dar es Salaam. |
| 2022 | Bootcamps in Béjaïa (Algeria) and Nairobi (Kenya); international conference in Dar es Salaam; online coach course for six coaches from Malaysia and two from Algeria. |
| 2023 | Mermaids for Inclusion (coordinator) and Water Sports Festival; co-founds a Romanian finswimming initiative; presentations of finswimming in Volos (Greece) and Sarajevo. |
| 2024 | Finswimming in Kosovo; C-BEST, Ternary Categories in Sport and WIN; Mermaids final event in Sarajevo. |
| 2025–2026 | BalkanSplash (Erasmus+ Sport Capacity Building, coordinator), C-BEST+, the ESF+ projects Snaga peraja and Valovi uključenosti; project manager for Female Football Club Međimurje (LeadHerGame, The Haven Principle); launch of FinSwim.World. |
Education
- Master's degree in Business Economics (Dottore Magistrale in Economia Aziendale), University of Bologna, 2004
- State examination for financial advisors (CONSOB), Italy, 2004
- Before sport became his profession: financial advisor, retail and digital management roles, and project manager of the UISP summer camps in Bologna (over 3,000 children a day)
- Languages: Italian, Croatian, English, French