So at the just-for-fun Speaker's Corner event on Friday night at Hotel Føroyar, our federation president Jon Hestoy got into a mine-is-bigger-than-yours competition with Ilkka Keskinen from Finland and Hafþór Gudmundsson from Iceland, speakers at the 11th Nordic Conference in Elementary Swimming Teaching, on how many 5-6th grade kids could swim in their countries. Unfortunately there is quite a lot of background noise, but I strongly recommend at least to listen to Hafþór, since their statistics are absolutely impressive, and the solution quite simple. And notice, they compare the Nordic definition of swimming ability, which is to be able to swim 200 meters or more.
Video 1 – Jon Hestoy, president of the Faroese Swimming Association, on how local access to swimming pools makes a significant difference.
Video 2 – Ilkka Keskinen, lecturer at Jyväskylä University in Finland, on how you can get impressive results even with ‘too many kids per teacher'.
Video 3 – Hafþór Gudmundsson, assistant professor at the University of Iceland, on how the Icelandic manage to have 98% of kids knowing how to swim after 5th grade.