LITHUANIA: Babies compete to be the fastest crawler in annual baby crawling competition

Record ID: 644310

  • Title: LITHUANIA: Babies compete to be the fastest crawler in annual baby crawling competition
  • Date: 31st May 2010
  • Summary: (SOUNDBITE) (Lithuanian) ORGANISER OF BABY CRAWLING RACE, SAULIUS ZAKARKA, SAYING: "To mark International Child Protection Day, we [radio station "M-1 Plus"] are holding the 11th annual baby crawling competition. There are 25 babies, 16 boys and nine girls, ages ranging from 6.5 to 12 months, taking part in the competition. And we will see which of these babies is the fastest this year."
  • Embargoed: 15th June 2010 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Lithuania
  • Country: Lithuania
  • Topics: Light / Amusing / Unusual / Quirky
  • Reuters ID: LVA3CA06E740QC5IF6PA0GPKOYPF
  • Story Text: 25 infants took part in Lithuania's annual baby crawling contest in Vilnius on Sunday (May 30).
    The young competitors and their parents were trying to win the title of 'fastest crawler in the land'.
    Organiser Saulius Zakarka said the contest was held to mark International Child Protection Day.
    "To mark International Child Protection Day, we [radio station "M-1 Plus"] are holding the 11th annual baby crawling competition. There are 25 babies, 16 boys and nine girls, ages ranging from 6.5 to 12 months, taking part in the competition. And we will see which of these babies is the fastest this year," he said.
    Lithuania's annual baby racing contest has become something of a spectator sport since it was first staged in the capital Vilnius 11 years ago.
    The tiny racers competed in heats along a five-metre carpeted track. At the finish line, parents frantically jangled keys and dangled toys or, to surprising success, showed laptops to entice their offspring. But for some of the participants, maintaining focus and direction proved too much.
    12 month old Augustas Petravicius had no problem with the task in hand, she took just under 15 seconds to clamber across the finish line into the arms of father Ricardas, and was crowned this year's champion crawler.
    Her father said the family had trained for the race in the corridor of their home.
    "We are very excited. We got the invitation to participate in this competition about six months ago and we were afraid that we were too young to participate. Today we said, let's just do it, and we suddenly won. We trained for a week, with pampers and a ball in our corridor, in the evenings. We were successful!," he said.
    The winning family walked away with a pile of gifts including a suitcase twice the size of the winning competitor.
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