Thousands travel to a frigid beach in Norway to take part in the largest polar bear dip
At 11:05 a.m. on 13 December, thousands of shivering people stumbled through the frigid waves of Norway’s Ølberg beach in Sola, braving the freezing temperatures to claim a Guinness World Records title for the largest polar bear dip in history.
For the last three years, Badeglede – a local swimming group, translating to ‘bathing pleasure’ – has been arranging these dips off the Ølberg beach via a simple Facebook event. Their first swim drew a total of 300 people, but the next brought in thousands – so for their third attempt, they decided to invite the world!
Little did they expect that an incredible total of 3,134 participants would show up at the beach in the middle of last December, wearing nothing but their swimsuits – and thus the new world record was born.
“I still feel too stressed to fully enjoy this, but it has been great and overwhelming,” said the event organizers. “We will do the same next year, no doubt.”
Even though the event was full of Norwegians representing their red-white-and-blue, a thrilling number of participants travelled from around the world to take part in the icy swim.
Guinness World Records Adjudicator Richard Stenning – who was overseeing the event – remarked that he heard voices from the UK, USA, Poland, Latvia, and even Australia, as the massive crowd huddled together on the beach before the attempt.
“This event summarized the great spirit of mass participation record breaking,” he said. “Lots of Santa hats and other fancy dress, laughter and smiles everywhere, [it was just] a pleasure to be around.”
Were you one of the brave swimmers who took part in this massive attempt? Then grab your official Record Participant Certificate today at our GWR store!
To count as an official ‘polar bear dip’, participants had to stand in waist-deep water that’s a maximum temperature of 10℃ (50℉), for at least one whole minute.
Luckily, the temperature of the water that day was 9.9℃ – perfect for swimming (according to the Norwegians)!
Read more stories about brave record holders in our dedicated Human Body section!
Finally, the event organizers sounded an alarm that indicated everyone could jump into the sea – and as thousands of sandy feet began to brush against the icy water, screams of adrenaline and thrill were heard all the way down the beach.
Richard and the rest of the volunteers began quickly counting to make sure that everyone was following the rules, and sadly, 17 people were unable to stand the cold water and rushed out before they could be included in the total.
However, more than 3,000 attendees bravely handled the situation, and Badeglede was able to take home the title!
“The attendance was very impressive given it was merely marketed through a Facebook event with no sponsorship, advertising, organisational or governmental pressures,” said Richard, after awarding the organizers with their record-breaking certificate.
“Despite the love for GWR, the love for the activity itself and the strong sense of community it brought was humbling.”
So congratulations to everyone that took part in this fantastic (yet freezing) event – you are all Officially Amazing!