hiidenkonttibeta

They’ve having Winter Swimming World Championships in Oulu this week. I happened to be going past the place the competition was being held, and went there to take a few photos since I had a camera with me.

The competitors were instructed to take off their clothes and get in to water so that their shoulders were under the water. Then they were sent off, they swam 25 meters and got up:

Note that it was about -14°C outside today. They also had a sauna and a hot bath available:

The web page of the competition tells that there are participants from 18 countries. On the few rounds I watched, most were Finns (of course), then several Russians, and competitor from Latvia and another from Slovakia.