Why can't we be friends?

I have just returned from the XII World Championships of Winter Swimming held in Bled, Slovenia, and I cannot help but feel bittersweet about the experience. Everything there was positive, including the excellent venue, the increasing level of the competitors, and especially the good friends you make along the way. However, on the negative side, I still cannot comprehend how such a tiny sport can have two organizations (IISA, IWSA) that put together parallel events with different set of rules. How tiny is the sport, you ask? The stats are actually mind-blowing. It is estimated that 20% and 3% of the world population regularly exercises and swims, respectively (these are US estimates, so the global % are probably smaller). Of those, there are about 100,000 swimmers that have completed a race in the open waters (guesstimate) and less than 20,000 “official” marathon swimmers. Some of them (and some others) have taken the challenge into the ice, and today there are 2,500 cold-loving s...