Winter swimmers brave stormy conditions and sub zero temperatures

(27 Jan 2025)
DENMARK WINTER BATHING FESTIVAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
LENGTH: 4:09
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Skagen, Denmark - 24 January 2025
1. Various of people entering the water at opening of Skagen Winter Bathing Festival in northern Denmark
2. Women posing in swimsuits and bunny ears
3. Couple walking towards beach in wind
4. Close of flag blowing in wind, reading (Danish): “Skagen Winter Bathing Festival”
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Rita Eeg, 78-year-old founder of Skagen Winter Bathing Festival:
"We knew it from the music festivals in the summertime all over the world. Why not do the same four days in the wintertime? And in the starting of 2008, 9, 10, it was more and more, can you call it modern? It started all over to be a winter swimmer, do something new. And more and more people say, yeah, we want something else. We want to live, to feel that you live. Because when you are out there, you know it. No doubt about it, I am living."
6. Various of participants gathered before entering water
7. Man playing trombone to open Skagen Winter Swimming Festival
8. SOUNDBITE (English) Rita Eeg, 78-year-old founder of Skagen Winter Bathing Festival:
"When we started 14 years ago, it was often cold. Ten degrees, minus ten degrees, and when it's really maybe it's windy, so windy, and freezing ten degrees, it feels like 20 and not like ten."
9. Various of participants in jacuzzi
10. Pan of men in ice bath, woman pours in ice
11. Danish flag flying in high winds
12. Participants in jacuzzi
13. SOUNDBITE (English) Bent Christensen, chief operating officer, “The Top of Denmark” tourist board:
"Now it's become a tradition, and we can see the same people from Norway, Sweden, Germany come here every year because they can see the funny thing about the event. So, and for the locals also, now something happens in the city at this time of year and that's good for everybody."
14. Various of people entering water
15. Various of waves and rocks
16. SOUNDBITE (English) Rita Eeg, 78-year-old founder of Skagen Winter Bathing Festival:
"It's so regulated now, every step of your life. So, do something you decide. No one says to you, go on, just do it. Because, oh, the first time, it's so cold, I will freeze and I'm saying, if I can do this, I can do anything in the whole world. That's my feeling."
17. Man wearing Viking hat sat in jacuzzi
18. Man wearing Viking hat entering mobile sauna, closes door
19. Mobile sauna parked near beach
STORYLINE:
LEADIN:
Wind, waves and… bathing? As Storm Éowyn and wild winter weather hit the UK, Ireland and France, some in Denmark reached for their swimsuits.
Now in thirteenth year, Skagen (pron. “Skay-gn”) Winter Bathing Festival brings hundreds of hardened “Vikings” to Denmark’s most northerly city to swim in its frigid waters.
STORYLINE:
Braving high winds and horizontal showers, hundreds dived into the freezing seas off Denmark’s north coast over the weekend (23-26 January) … some even dressed up for the occasion.
Welcome to the thirteenth edition of the Skagen Winter Bathing Festival.
Hundreds of swimmers plunge into the chilly sea off Denmark’s most northerly city.
The four-day festival was founded in 2012. At the time, it was the first and only gathering of its kind in the Scandinavian country.
Seventy-eight-year-old founder Rita Eeg says they got the idea after forming a local swim club with friends.
"We knew it from the music festivals in the summertime all over the world. Why not do the same four days in the wintertime?” she says.
AP Video by James Brooks
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