Malaga 14 July 2008

Success at the finals

The “Swim the Language Challenge” had a fantastic final event at the European Water Polo Championships in Malaga. The Challenge is an E-learning Language Competition supported by the EU Socrates Programme and LEN, to promote language learning through European Water Sports Events. Project partners are Leader Comunicare Interculture (Italy), University of Primorska (Slovenia), BBS University of Budapest (Hungary), Transdemica (Finland).

Many people took the language challenge

The Challenge started in 2006 at the European Short Course Swimming Championships in Helsinki. Since then more than 3000 people have visited the Language Pool Stand at Championships events and more than 400 participants registered for the language race on line.

Four languages, four finalists

The Challenge was run in four languages: Finnish, Hungarian, Italian and Slovenian and the four finalists, one in every language, were invited to the Finals held in Malaga. Gabor Madaras and Zsofia Deme from Hungary, Tatiana Tonelli from Italy and Kerstin Menk from Germany completed the race, each with an excellent performance and eventually Zsofia Deme won the first prize: she was awarded a trip and accreditation to the Swimming Finals at the Olympic Games in Beijing.

All four finalists have a swimming background, they are interested in languages and cultures and learnt about the Challenge at the Language Pool Stand during LEN European events.

LEN's commitment to education

During the Ceremony LEN Secretary Sven Egil Folvik and Treasurer Nory Kruchten handed over the award to the winner. They mentioned that LEN had enthusiastically supported the project since its very beginning because LEN believes it is part of its mission to support the education of young athletes in which languages play an important role.