Speed skating: Bart Swings remains European champion

13/01/2022

Bart Swings retained his title in the mass start event at the European Speed Skating Championships.

The Belgian Bart Swings has once again distinguished himself in the mass start event at the European Speed Skating competition held on the Heerenveen skating track in the Netherlands. This discipline consists of 16 laps of a 400-meter track. Twenty-four skaters started on the same line at the same time and the rankings were established at the end of the 6,400 metres.

The native of Herent (Province of Flemish Brabant) won with a time of 7:33.030 ahead of Switzerland's Livio Wenger (7:33.170) and Russia's Ruslan Zakharov (7:33.510). He thus retains the European title he won in 2020 (the competition was cancelled in 2021) on this same track in Heerenveen.

Bart Swings is the Belgian record-holder in the 5,000 metre race and can also boast of being one of the 12 fastest skaters of all time.

This performance is a good omen, coming just a few days before the opening of the Winter Olympics in Beijing.