Vansbrosimningen, live.

Two kilometres with the river, one against it

An open-water swim in two rivers in Dalarna, held since 1950 and swum in July.

Vansbrosimningen started in 1950 and celebrated 75 years in 2025. The organiser calls it one of the world’s largest and oldest open-water events, with close to 10,000 participants across the swim week. The 3,000 m main race is the swimming leg of En Svensk Klassiker, and in 2026 it started at 10:00 on Saturday 4 July. The week around it holds shorter swims too: Vansbro Halvsim over 1,500 m on Sunday 28 June and Vansbro Tjejsim over 1,000 m on Friday 3 July.

What sets the course apart is the water itself. The first 2,000 metres are swum downstream in Vanån. Then the course turns into Västerdalälven and the last 1,000 metres go upstream, against the current, to the finish. The confluence is where the race changes character: everything after it is swum into the current. Halvsim uses the same idea at a smaller scale: 500 metres with the current in Vanån, then the same 1,000 metres against it.

From the bank, a swimmer is a cap among hundreds of caps. If the swimmer shares their Livebib link, family and friends open it in a browser, with no app and no account, and see the position on the river course, the distance covered and a finish estimate that updates. When the signal from the water is patchy, the position is carried forward along the course and marked as estimated rather than freezing. The upstream kilometre is exactly where that estimate matters, because the pace drops just as everyone starts walking to the finish.