Ötillö Swimrun World Series debuts in Malta this weekend as the island becomes one of the event’s official destinations. The team-sport which originated in Sweden back in 2006, puts pairs of racers together to complete a course within 10 metres of each other. Kurt Aquilina met up with co-founder Michael Lemmel to discuss the event.
The event is based on three different races, spread out over Saturday and Sunday. The World Series race, taking place on Sunday, follows a course which starts in front of the Tritoni fountain and ends at Golden Bay. The Ötillö Experience and Ötillö Sprint, happening the day before, are shorter versions of the race and competitors are even given the option to go solo.
Lemmel said the reason why they created two other races beside the main world series was to create “entry levels into swimrun because starting off with the 40km (race) like the World Series is not something everybody can do.”
“The Sprint (15km) and Experience (7.5km) start and finish on the beach at Golden Bay. They are loops, leading to the bay towards the Southeast and back. It is a beautiful race-course and I would call it a swimrun paradise,” he said.
“We will be able to adjust the course (depending on weather) but ultimately, if we can manage to do all courses in their entirety, I think we will have many teams who will be ambassadors for doing swimrun in Malta for the future.
“This year we have close to 640 participants over the whole weekend and I’m sure we can do even more next year.”
The event has gone through a testing stage last year when Ötillö hosted a shorter race in Malta to “figure out if there is a customer base” and which had had close to a hundred participants.
“Our plan is to do this every year, at the same time. This will be the last race of the season and for years to come as long as Visit Malta support and see a future in this. But there are more than 600 people coming from 23 or 24 different nations so that means a lot of visitors to Malta,” the Swede remarked.
The main event on Sunday will see many of the best teams in the world taking part. Lemmel mentioned that former world champions will be in Malta and “it will be surprisingly fast on Sunday at the front”.
Asked about local participation, the Swede was very happy to say that response has been very good. “I think in every distance, we have Maltese racers and that’s a fantastic start,” he said, “I’m sure there’s a strong endurance and running community in Malta and I think there is a good future for swimrun in Malta with the local community.”
Besides the main athletic activity taking place over the weekend, the organisation will be focussing on their environmental impact. Lemmel explained that ever since the beginning, they did not want to put pressure on land-owners and nature itself by overcrowding their events. “We don’t want thousands of participants because that is not sustainable tourism and it creates more impact than we want,” he emphasised.
“We don’t want to leave anything but footsteps and memories.
“We only use biodegradable course markings and at the back of the race, we have a sweeper team that takes everything down so that when the race is finished, we will leave no mark.”
Lemmel compared the event with a city marathon where contestants tend to litter while racing. “You can’t just do it like a city marathon - It’s crazy how people are doing. We have garbage cans and all our racers know that if they throw anything on the ground, they’re disqualified!”
“Two years ago, we wanted to start pushing forward the #cleantheocean which is an awareness campaign that we’re driving and the purpose of that is to make people understand that 80% of all garbage found in the ocean is thrown on land.
“In every race, we have a ‘Clean the ocean’ event as well. Tomorrow (Saturday) (at 16:00hrs) we have a joint thrash pick at Golden Bay and racers and everyone else is welcome. We’re constantly thinking about this circular and holistic side of it.”