Coaching
She builds programmes for very different groups, from children to adults and from first-time swimmers to athletes with performance goals. Combining her coaching and refereeing experience, she shapes each programme around the swimmer's goal.
Home / About
Swimroad Adventure
About
A swimming journey from the pool to the open sea, and the person who started it.
Founder · Sports manager, sports and swimming coach
Nilüfer Solak
Nilüfer Solak brings together a sports science education, swimming coaching and refereeing experience. She is the founder of SwimRoad Adventure Kapidag / Türkiye.
She completed her degree in Sports Management at the Faculty of Sport Sciences, Gazi University, followed by a master's degree at the Institute of Educational Sciences. After working across several sports, she specialised in swimming coaching. Today she designs and runs training programmes for different age groups and performance goals.
- Education
- Gazi University, Sports Management (BSc) · Institute of Educational Sciences (MA)
- Specialism
- Swimming coaching, performance and conditioning training
- Referee
- Pool swimming referee · Open water swimming referee
- Open water
- Bosphorus, Dardanelles and Anzac Cove open water experiences
Experience
From the poolside to sea races
Nilüfer Solak's work goes beyond coaching. She has seen races from the inside as a referee, worked as a manager in the tourism sector, and swum demanding courses herself.
Pool and open water refereeing
She has refereed at a range of pool competitions, and as an open water swimming referee she has worked at sea races in several provinces of Türkiye. That work taught her race rules, course safety and organisation first-hand.
Tourism and management
In the tourism sector she worked as a SPA coordinator and manager, and played an active part in business development and building professional networks. That experience helps her today when setting up open water experiences and partnerships.
Test and interview preparation
She provides performance and conditioning training for candidates preparing for the special aptitude tests of Physical Education and Sports Colleges, and for people attending preliminary interviews for military special forces.
Open water experience
Kilometres swum across the straits
Nilüfer Solak has taken part in open water races across the Bosphorus in Istanbul and the Dardanelles in Çanakkale, completing both demanding courses. She also swam in the race held at Anzac Cove in Çanakkale, an event dedicated to peace.
Knowing what currents, waves and long distances do to the body, as both a swimmer and a referee, is the basis of SwimRoad's approach to safety. The same experience guides the endurance training of swimmers preparing for open water.
Videos
Footage from open water
Nilüfer Solak's open water swims in Kapidag and Kaş, Kekova. Each video loads from YouTube when you press play.
How it started
From Aqua Balance to SwimRoad
- 2015
Aqua Balance
Nilüfer Solak founded the Aqua Balance brand to bring her sports and swimming work together under one professional structure.
- 2026
SwimRoad Adventure Kapidag / Türkiye
Launched in October 2026, SwimRoad was set up for experiences that bring open water swimming together with nature, sport and environmental awareness. Coaching in the pool all year, then open water around Kapidag when summer comes. The road starts in the pool and leads to the sea, which is where the "road" in the name comes from.
Our vision
To spread swimming culture and put Kapidag on the open water map
To help sport and swimming reach the whole of society, help talented children be discovered, and help people build healthy habits. To create safe routes around Kapidag that are open to everyone, and make the region a place open water swimmers return to every summer.
Our mission
To support personal growth through the right training
To help raise healthy, disciplined people through sport, and to bring people together for sport and nature meet-ups that draw attention to protecting the seas and the natural environment.
Our values
What matters to us
Safety
Every lesson and experience starts with a safety plan. If the weather or sea isn't right, the experience is postponed.
The right training
Progress comes from a programme built for you and followed with patience. We never push anyone to a distance they're not ready for.
Responsibility to nature
We leave the shore cleaner than we found it and hold meet-ups that draw attention to protecting the sea.
Sport brings people together
Open water is better together. Our experiences are about sharing and swimming together.
“To bring the unifying power of sport, the transforming effect of swimming and our responsibility to nature together under one roof.”Nilüfer Solak · Founder
Committed to the principles and values of Atatürk, Nilüfer Solak founded SwimRoad with this aim.
