The island of Hvar in Croatia hosts the first race of the 2018 ÖTILLÖ Swimrun World Series – with close to 120 teams from 20 nations on the start line. Sunday, April 8th is race day, and some of the best teams in the world will chase the coveted Golden Bib and take on the challenge of winning six ÖTILLÖ races in a row and a prize purse of €33,000 per category.
The organising team notes that these teams challenging for the ÖTILLÖ Swimrun World Series title, together with an additional hundred teams will be challenged by the stunning course in Croatia where the athlete pairs will ‘run along beautiful trails and do epic ocean swims’.
The island of Hvar, accessible off the Croatian coast from Split, is a fitting swimrun location and seen as the perfect opening race for the swimrun season. The sea is typically crystal clear, the water temperature on race day will be around 15°C and, on a sunny day, air temperatures can climb to 20°C.
The 40.4 km race course is challenging, with almost 31.6 km of trail running, including some vertical climbs and descents, as well as a run along the central ridge of the island. Racers need to be good swimmers to handle the 9 different swim sections totalling 8,800m, where the longest swim is a brutal 2,950m.
Add in some Roman ruins, impressive architecture, wild flowers, the smell of rosemary, and wonderful people, and this course is set to make for a great setting and swimrun season opener.
Mats Skott, Race Director of the ÖTILLÖ Swimrun World Series and one of the founders of the sport of swimrun said “After a long winter in Sweden it is so nice to start the season in a warm, friendly place like Hvar where you realize why this sport is such a great thing. The camaraderie, the sense of discovering new places and the challenge of Hvar makes this the perfect location.”
Some of swimrun’s top teams will be taking on the challenge in Hvar. Swimrun world champions and winners of the ÖTILLÖ Swimrun World Series will be on the start line, as well as athletes from a far-reaching number of countries.
On Saturday, April 7th ÖTILLÖ Swimrun Hvar will host a shorter, more accessible race – ÖTILLÖ Sprint Hvar. The name eludes to the distance and not to the speed. Here, there are more than 55 teams signed up for a l taste of ÖTILLÖ Swimrun and athletes will complete a 12.5 km course where 9.9 km is running and 2.6 km involves swimming over five sections.
ÖTILLÖ Swimrun Hvar is part of the ÖTILLÖ Swimrun World Series and a qualifier to the ÖTILLÖ Swimrun World Championship in the Swedish archipelago.
The ÖTILLÖ Swimrun World Series is heading for its third season with a minimum of six qualifier races for the ÖTILLÖ Swimrun World Championship. One new event is seeing its birth in the autumn of 2018, with details on this to follow in due course.
ÖTILLÖ Swimrun World Series 2018. Six qualifying races to ÖTILLÖ:
- ÖTILLÖ Swimrun Hvar, Croatia, 8 April 2018
- ÖTILLÖ Swimrun Utö, Sweden, 20 May
- ÖTILLÖ Swimrun Isles of Scilly, UK, 10 June
- ÖTILLÖ Swimrun Engadin, Switzerland, 8 July
- ÖTILLÖ Swimrun 1000 Lakes, Germany, 30 Sept (qualifier to ÖTILLÖ 2019)
- ÖTILLÖ Swimrun XX – event to be officially confirmed, Autumn -18 (qualifier to ÖTILLÖ 2019)
At each ÖTILLÖ World Series event a sprint race is organised on the previous day.
Renowned as one of the toughest one-day races in the world, the ÖTILLÖ Swimrun World Championship has its 13th edition on 3 September 2018. This event runs over 75 km between 26 islands in the Stockholm Archipelago.
