Last weekend, I took part in the first official swimrun race in Romania, almost 20 years after the very first race of its kind on our planet. We were just a handful of competitors (seven finishers), even though it was a super engaging competition. I realized that people here don’t really know what this sport is all about, so I thought I’d start a series of articles to popularize swimrun and attract more movement enthusiasts in Romania to this fascinating discipline.
So, for the first episode, let’s start right at the origins: how did it all begin?
Once upon a time, on a summer night in 2002, there was a hotel table in the Stockholm archipelago overflowing with empty bottles. Anders Malm, the owner of the Utö Värdshus hotel, was chatting with his friend Janne Lindberg and two of their employees, brothers Mats and Jesper Andersson. Naturally, they were talking about endurance, pushing limits, and those stubborn islands that slice the Baltic Sea into dozens of strips of rock and cold water.
At one point, the discussion moved to a map.
“What if,” Anders said, tracing an improvised line with his finger across the table, “we start from Sandhamn and make our way by foot and swimming all the way here to our hotel at Utö? Across more than twenty islands. No boats, no breaks, just us.”
The response didn’t come in kilometers or pace per thousand meters, but in a simple Scandinavian bet: the last ones to arrive pay for the lodging, the food, and everything drunk that night.
The next morning, when the alcoholic haze cleared, the challenge remained on the table. The four of them didn’t back down. They set off on a wild route covering over 75 kilometers of rugged terrain and freezing waters. They swam with running shoes on their feet, ran through brambles and over wet rocks wearing heavy neoprene wetsuits, and took brief breaks in island restaurants, leaving tourists staring in stunned silence.
It took them over 28 hours to reach the finish line—exhausted, freezing, and convinced that nature isn’t just a backdrop for sports, but a direct competitor.
For two years, the challenge remained just a memorable story among friends, until Michael Lemmel and Mats Skott recognized the potential of this madness and decided, in 2006, to turn it into an official competition. They called it simply: ÖTILLÖ—”from island to island” in Swedish.
At the first edition, nine teams of two lined up. Only two managed to cross the finish line before the time limit expired. The concept was brutal: there were no transition areas, no tens-of-thousands-of-euros bikes, no downtime to change your socks or dry your feet. Whatever you brought with you at the start, you had to drag across the finish line. You ran in a wetsuit cut at the knees, swam with your running shoes on, tethered yourself to your partner with an elastic cord, and relied on a pair of hand paddles and a piece of foam to keep the water from pulling you under.
Here is what Michael Lemmel wrote on his Instagram account, 20 years after the first swimrun competition:
We had 9 teams of two (of which one was mixed) on the start line in Sandhamn.
A little over twelve hours later the first team arrived to Utö Värdshus, they had cruised the archipelago on air mattresses. As that was not against the rules at that time (rule change after that..) Team Nokia, adventure racing greats, won the first ever ÖTILLÖ. In second place came team FJS, a little over 14 hours. They swam the course military style, on their backs with fins, dragging their back packs. These were the only two teams that completed the course.
Over the years Mats and I kept pushing the race forward together with racers from all corners of the world and our passionate team of few. This then generated a series of races all in the same spirit and the new sport that we all know as Swimrun. For 17 years we were part of the evolution of a new sport until it all came to an abrupt end.
Now 20 years after our first race I feel grateful for all the fantastic people I have met through the years, I feel grateful for being part of creating a spirit among swimrunners, that I find exceptional and I feel grateful for a book full of experiences together with you. Keep being true to the spirit of the sport!
The name “SwimRun” didn’t even exist until around 2012, coined almost on the fly by Erika Rosenbaum, one of the top competitors from those early years. From there, the idea blew up. What started as a friendly challenge over a few beers in a Swedish hotel turned into the ÖTILLÖ World Championship and a global phenomenon that caught fire everywhere from the Norwegian fjords to the coastal trails of Portugal and France.
Eu am fost la una dintre competițiile din seria ÖTILLÖ, la Cannes. Vezi detalii aici: https://biciclistul.ro/swimrun-la-cannes-cum-am-alergat-si-inotat-alaturi-de-fiica-mea-natalia-echipa-neptun-ariel-are-misiunea-indeplinita/
Am fost însă și la o cursă în Portugalia, chiar anul acesta: https://biciclistul.ro/lagoa-swimrun-cand-oceanul-decide-sa-schimbe-regulile-jocului/
Swimrun in Romania
In Romania, the swimrun community is still in its infancy, made up of a tight-knit group of enthusiasts who have tasted the thrill of international races and returned home with incredible stories. It would be a great idea to pick their brains a bit, wouldn’t it? To hear about the places they’ve crossed and what an adventure like this truly entails.
The most vocal promoter of this discipline in our country is Bogdan Mihai Ioniță, an amateur athlete who took his passion to an elite level and checked off some of the world’s toughest triathlons. In search of new challenges, Bogdan discovered swimrun. And with eight international races under his belt—including the famous ÖTILLÖ World Series leg—he put his full experience on the line to support the organization of the first official swimrun competition in Romania.
The debut event was held between the resort of Jupiter and Mangalia under the Atlantisman umbrella. The initiative came from the well-known open-water swimmer Paul Georgescu, who brought in Bogdan Mihai Ioniță to design the course.
The first edition gathered a small but highly energetic core of pioneers at the start: the long-distance race saw 7 individual finishers, while the short course brought together 13 competitors. The field was rounded out by three teams—one lining up for the sprint race and two for the long-distance course.
In the upcoming articles of this series, we’ll talk about the specific gear (why do we swim with running shoes on, and what’s the deal with those huge hand paddles?), how to choose your partner, and how a race like this unfolds step by step.
Stay tuned!