With two months to go, the organising process has geared up in Denmark where the hosts are preparing for their second big LEN Event in four years. After the outstanding success of Herning 2013, another European Short-Course Swimming Championships will take place in the North, this time in Copenhagen.
Paolo Barelli, LEN President, said,
“This event is going to be another wonderful celebration of European Aquatics. The Danish Swimming Federation, headed by our fellow Bureau Member Pia Holmen, is doing a wonderful job and we can be sure that this edition of the short-course European Championships will be another big hit. European athletes have done a fantastic job in 2017, too, our continent was by far the strongest in the World Championships either we consider the medal charts, the number of finalists or the number of participants. We are convinced that our swimmers will come up with fantastic performances in December again and LEN, our National Federations and European Aquatics will close this year on a high.”
The venue cannot be any more exciting: the brand new Royal Arena will witness the coronation of the short-course season on 13-17 December. The Arena has already hosted a handful of concerts, including tremendous shows of Metallica and Drake, but sport is yet to make its debut in the multipurpose facility and in two months time LEN’s biannual swimming meet shall inaugurate it as a sport venue.
The Danish Swimming Federation, in association with Sport Event Denmark and the City of Copenhagen, is committed to stage another wonderful event which is going to feature a handful of European stars. It takes another month before the home team will be selected, however, it’s almost sure that the locals could cheer for such greats as Olympic champion sprinter Pernille Blume, world record-holder breaststroker Rikke Moller Pedersen, European champion Mie Nielsen and Viktor Bromer to name a few.
Ticket sales figures sign pretty strong interest from the fans: 14,000 have already been purchased and the organisers expect to pass the 25,000 barrier by the start – if not more as the Arena could accommodate 6,500 spectators per session.
Foreign fans representing 24 nations have also had their shares of the ticket purchasing. Not surprisingly, the Swedes were busy to book their seats in huge numbers, 10% of the tickets were bought by the neighbours who are eager to cheer for Sarah Sjostrom. She has been enjoying a brilliant season: she amassed three world titles and a silver at the FINA World Championships in Budapest in July, setting two WRs en route, and later she added four more global marks in the short-course World Cup.
In December, Sjostrom and fellow European swimmers might hit the top gear again to force LEN to transfer a larger sum to their bank accounts as the European Federation offers record-bonuses for the first time in its history. World Records are worth €10,000 while the European Records pay €5,000 and the total prize money pot for the top 12 results (both genders respectively) amounts €220,000.
Press release courtesy of LEN.