Update: Complete Nordic Tour Cancelled Due To Coronavirus

Below is the original report noting that the Bergen Swim Festival had been cancelled. Since then, we also reported that the Swim Open Stockholm was cancelled as well due to the coronavirus (COVID-19).

Now meet organizers of the remaining Helsinki Swim Meet, originally scheduled for March 25th & 26th, have reported its cancellation as follows. This wipes out the 3-stop Nordic Tour for 2020.

We regret to announce that Arena Helsinki Swim Meet on 25.–26. March is cancelled. 

This is a matter of COVID-19 circumstances and defined by Finnish government’s request to cancel all public events of more than 500 persons in Finland until the end of May 2020. We are very sorry for this unfortunate occasion and apologize all the inconvenience. We are eager to find a new date for the meet, and hope to see you in Helsinki soon again!

For those teams already entered we will contact directly with more details at latest 16. March.

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The annual Nordic Swimming Tour is set to kick-off this month, but there is already a disruption due to the worldwide coronavirus (COVID-19) situation.

The Nordic Tour typically consists of a trio of meets including Helsinki Swim Meet (Finland), the Bergen Swim Festival (Norway) and the Swim Open Stockholm (Sweden).

Scheduled for March 28th-30th, the Bergen Swim Festival saw organisers post the following message today:

Following recommendations given by FHI (Norwegian Institute of Public Health) and orders from Bergen County with regards to COVID-19 Bergen Swim Festival 2020- March 28-30th is cancelled. We apologize for the cancellation, but the health of our competitors, volunteers and all involved must come first.

Per Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center, at the time of publishing, there have been 400 cases of COVID-19 reported within the nation.

The Bergen Swim Festival was sanctioned as an official Olympic-qualifying meet, leaving some Olympic hopefuls with one less opportunity to nail a Tokyo-worthy time. Swimmers appearing on the entry lists included Germans to the tune of Philip Heintz, Marco Koch and Jessica Steiger, along with Norwegian natives Henrik Christiansen and Tomoe Hvas.