Barcelona’s Santa Swim drew 430 swimmers, many in Santa costumes and other festive regalia, into cold waters for a Christmas Day swim of 200 meters in the harbor.
The race, which has been held annually since 1907, starts from the Columbus Monument at the end of Las Ramblas. The winner is awarded a trophy, the Copa Nadal. The winner this year, as in the past five, was Guillern Pujol, a swimmer from Mataro, a town north of Barcelona.
Although the Santa Swim is mostly for fun, a number of swimmers used costumes or signs to protest the trials and sentences of Catalan independence campaigners.
