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Norwegian victory in Barents swimming

Many of the swimmers on the Norwegian Barents team are taking part in the Norwegian national championship in Stavanger this week. Photo: Trude Pettersen

The Norwegian team won this year’s Barents Sports Festival in swimming by two small points. Nearly 50 swimmers from Russia, Finland and Norway gathered in Finnmark this weekend.

Location

Sport has an important place in the people-to-people cooperation in the Barents Region. International sports activities involve many participants and contribute to remove political, social and cultural barriers.

Many different sports have annual competitions for the region’s best athletes. This weekend Lakselv in Finnmark, Norway, hosted the Barents Swim Meet 2013 with participation of teams from Norway, Russia and Finland.

The competition gathered some 50 young swimmers, many of them among the best of their age group in their respective home countries.

The final results showed that the Norwegian team won by only two points over Finland, followed by Russia on third place. The Finnish team took 12 first places, the Norwegian 10 and the Russian team 2. 

Finland defeated the other two countries at both the men’s relays – 4x100 medley and 4x200 freestyle, while Norway took the victory in both the women’s relays – 4x 100 medley and 4x100 freestyle.