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 learned to swim in Castel Maggiore, near Bologna. In 1992, at the Arcoveggio pool in Bologna, coach and former world champion Monica Crovetti put a monofin on his feet for the first time. He trained at CN Universo Bologna (today Record Team Bologna) with coaches Mauro Tinti and Dario Grillini, joined the Italian junior national team in 1994 and the senior team in 1997. A versatile athlete, he won Italian youth titles from the 50 m apnoea to the 8 km open water. He raced for Italy until 1999 and in the Italian championships until 2001, then turned to coaching. 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, Athens (Greece): silver 4×200 m relay; 6th 400 m; 7th 200 m. That season he became the fifth Italian ever to swim the 200 m surface under 1:30.
- 1997 European Championships, Montpellier (France): silver, 4×200 m relay
- 1997 World Games, Lahti (Finland): bronze, 4×100 m and 4×200 m relays
- 1997 Italian Championships: five under-19 titles; Italian under-19 record in the 100 m, broken twice on the same day
- 1996 Italian Championships: under-19 champion in the 50 m apnoea and the 8 km open water; reserve for the senior World Championships
- 1995 Youth World Championships, Bratislava (Slovakia): finalist in the 50 m surface (7th) and 100 m surface (8th); 5th, 4×200 m relay; Italian under-17 record in the 200 m surface
- 1994 European Junior Championships, Balatonfűzfő (Hungary): silver, 4×100 m relay
- 2008 Croatian Championships: champion in the 400 m surface, racing for Geronimo Zagreb
- Masters: 2015 Masters World Cup, Ravenna (gold 100 m, silver 50 m surface); 2020 European Masters, Lignano (silver 100 m surface); 2021 European Masters, Lignano Sabbiadoro (gold 50 m bi-fins, 40+, 24.78)
- Italian Gold Medal for Athletic Valour (Medaglia d'Oro al Valore Atletico), awarded by CONI for the 1998 team world title
What sport taught him
Looking back on his years as an athlete, Rubes values three things most. Sport let him see the world through the eyes of a curious young man rather than a tourist. Ambitious goals are not the sum of training, diet and gym work: what makes the difference is the charisma of the people who lead a group and the passion of the athletes themselves. And sport is still a place where merit counts and you can try without fear of failing, which is why, for him, a true sportsperson is someone who can accept defeat calmly and keeps looking for the joy of the game, not only for the win.
Coach
- 2001–2006, Record Team Bologna: youth teams, together with Federico Nanni; in 2006 the two were offered the whole club team. Among their 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 in Eger (Hungary), where Vedrana Deren, in the 100 m bi-fins, became the first Croatian woman to reach a European final; 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.
2016 World Championships, Volos (Greece): Kristijan Tomić, silver in the 50 m bi-fins.
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 | Lecturer at the Croatian Olympic Academy finswimming coach course (level 1); coach camp in Zagreb for coaches from Romania; 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)
- Spoken languages: Italian, English, Croatian, French