2016 North Sea Swim Meet
- Friday Nov 4th – Sunday Nov 6th
- Stavanger Swim Hall, Stavanger, Norway
- 25m pool
- Results (in Norweigan)
- Website
The North Sea Swim Meet took place over the weekend in Stavanger, Norway. Top swimmers from all over the world have come to Stavanger for this short course meters meet since 1973.
This year’s competition featured swims by 14 Rio Olympians, along with five hundred competitors from 10 different nationalities. Norwegian Olympian Susann Bjørnsen won the 50m freestyle, 50m breaststroke, and 100m I.M. She set the Norwegian 50m freestyle record in long course meters at the Rio Olympics, and broke the 50m freestyle record for short course meters over the weekend at 24.62.
Other women’s performances included a big meet from defending European Champion in the 200 fly Franziska Hentke. She won the most events overall for the women with five victories and set a new meet record in the women’s 400 I.M. with a time of 4:41.94.
On the men’s side Italian Luca Dotto had the most wins, taking first place in the 50m freestyle, 100m freestyle, 200m freestyle, and 50m butterfly. The times weren’t overly impressive – his 48.12 in the 100 free, for example, was only a tenth faster than the 48.25 he used to win the European Championship in long course earlier this year.
Other notable swims included a second place finish in the 1500m freestyle from Erik Årsland Gidskehaug, who notched a time of 14:56.18 and only missed first place by 1.73 seconds. Gidskehaug earned a spot on the Norwegian team going to the Short Course World Championships taking place December 6-11 in Windsor, Canada as a result of that effort.
