2,461 People Took an Icy Swim, Set a Record

A frigid dip in a Czech lake set a Guinness record for most swimmers to freeze for at least a minute
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Mar 1, 2025 2:40 PM CST
A New Record for Largest Polar Bear Swim Has Been Set
Some of 2,461 polar swimmers wait in the water to set a world record for the largest polar bear dip at a lake in Most, Czech Republic, Saturday, March 1, 2025.   (AP Photo/Petr David Josek)

Czech cold-water swimmers on Saturday set a world record for the largest polar bear dip. As the AP reports, a total of 2,461 participants were involved in the successful attempt on the Most lake in northwest Czech Republic. The previous record was 1,799 swimmers who participated in the polar bear dip in Mielno, Poland, on the Baltic Sea on Feb. 15, 2015, according to Guinness World Records.

For the new record to be recognized, the participants have to be wearing bathing suits, be at least waist-deep in water, and stay there all together for at least one minute. The temperature of the water during the record attempt was 38.2 degrees Fahrenheit. It has to be lower than 50 degrees. "Czechs are a nation of polar swimmers," said David Vencl, the organizer of the event. Vencl, a freediver, himself set a world record four years ago in men's swimming under ice when he swam a distance of 265 feet.

(More Guinness World Records stories.)

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