Swimrun

A swimrun is a multiple-stage competition involving where participants are running and swimming over a cross-country race-course that involves many transitions between the swim- and run stages of the race.

History

Swimrun was started by Utö hotel owner Anders Malm and two brothers in his staff in 2002 with the idea of challenging each other in the Stockholm archipelago where the participants were going to finish the course of getting themselves from Sandhamn to Utö. In 2006 this idea was launched as an official competition called Ö till ö (Island to island).

Today Ö till ö, the original race, has been considered by some as one of the toughest endurance races in the world, and is now considered the world championship in swimrun. To enter the Ö till ö competition, one has to qualify, similar to Ironman Hawaii World championship in ironman triathlon. In Sweden, swimrun has become a new type of endurance competition that has gathered considerable support from its growing endurance sport and triathlon community and several annual races have been started across Sweden. The international focus has been growing in the last years, and in 2015 there were eight swimrun competitions outside of Sweden. The first swimrun race done in warm water is Aquaticrunner ® XTriM ITALY and it started in 2014. The biggest different with the Nordic races are Individual race (no team) and in this race is permitted to use only the pull buoy (no fins, snorkel, ecc…). This race as done in a surrounding of sea and islands, areas protected by wwf. The competition is open only with titles and it isn't open at all the athletes (ironman, 70.3 long swim and marathon race, ecc...). The swimming fraction in total is about 4 km, while the running fraction is 19 km.