Race Preview: ÖTILLÖ Swimrun Gothenburg

ÖTILLÖ Swimrun marches on and is returning to home-turf on Sweden’s shores after an impressive race in Switzerland. This is the last opportunity some athletes have to qualify for the Swimrun World Championship.

2022 sees a new race route described as a ‘high-speed sightseeing of a unique environment’. Participants will traverse through beautiful rocky granite islands formed many millions of years ago as the Earth was in a violent volcanic state of constantly erupting volcanoes and bubbling fissures.

For Michael Lemmel, co-founder at ÖTILLÖ the main difference from other races in the World Series is ‘the amount of people cheering the racers along throughout all the courses. It is a very busy holiday time and it makes the atmosphere electric during the event. The race courses are superb after making them more ÖTILLÖ-like since last year’.

World Series Race

The full course is a classic expression of swimrun. With 28 running sections totalling 26430m and 27 swimming sections totalling 6870m, this is swimrun hard and fast. Athletes will negotiate small fishing villages and swim through temperate waters.

Michael expects some unique challenges and one of the biggest facing athletes is ‘the constantly undulating nature of the islands’. If there is a westerly wind, this could also pose some challenges with athletes dealing with some chop and waves in some places. In some sections of the courses the racers could also encounter some jelly fish, although Michael is quick to put fears to rest ‘these are not as brutal as in the Mediterranean Sea but can be a bit stressful’.

Sprint & Experience Races

The Sprint course is 17.5km long and takes in many of the best elements of the World Series course. There are 16 swim sections with the longest swim at 550m and 17 run legs with the longest run at 3.3km.

The Experience race, at just under 10km, will see participants swim 1.5km over 7 stages and 7.8km of running over 8 stages.

All races are held in high regard with the local swimrun community getting behind the race in a very supportive way. The island communities are all extremely positive about the event and ÖTILLÖ has good local sponsorship.

Entries still open

Entries are still open for the World Series, Sprint and Experience races, with more information here.