The ÖTILLÖ Swimrun World Series continues with the second to last race of the season, with ÖTILLÖ 1000 Lakes kicking off in Germany on 30 September. The Mecklenburger Seenplatte area will host its third ÖTILLÖ Swimrun weekend, the fifth stop of the 2018 ÖTILLÖ Swimrun World Series. It is also the first race where teams can qualify to the 2019 ÖTILLÖ Swimrun World Championship in the Swedish archipelago.
The Mecklenburger Seenplatte just north of Berlin has more than 3,000 freshwater lakes with ‘very clean water’. The landscape takes in beech tree forests that start changing colours at the end of September.
Close to 120 teams from 22 nations will take the start for Sunday’s ÖTILLÖ Swimrun World Series race.
The teams of two start their Sunday morning with a ‘brutally fast run to the first lake where they will face a 1,000m swim at full speed before continuing south.’ In total, they will cover almost 34km on foot and 8km swimming, making a course distance just above 42km. The fastest teams are expected to complete the course in around 4.5 hours.
This year’s race will have the warmest water temperatures to date – with temperatures of 18°C expected in the bigger lakes.
For the first time at ÖTILLÖ 1000 Lakes the organising team are introducing a new concept – ÖTILLÖ Experience. This is an 8km race course that is positioned as being accessible to anyone, with the infrastructure of an ÖTILLÖ World Series race. This distance is being introduced at all race weekends starting with ÖTILLÖ 1000 Lakes. It will always be held on the Saturday of the race weekend.
Also on Saturday the organisers will host a slightly longer course which is ‘accessible to most’ – ÖTILLÖ Sprint 1000 Lakes. The name eludes to the distance and not to the speed. The course is almost 17km.
There are more than 50 teams from 13 nations signed up for these different tastes of ÖTILLÖ Swimrun. Both the ÖTILLÖ Experience and ÖTILLÖ Sprint can also be undertaken solo – with an inflatable buoy to race with for swimmer safety.
The ÖTILLÖ Swimrun World Series is heading for its third season with six qualifier races for the ÖTILLÖ Swimrun World Championship. One new event (ÖTILLÖ Cannes) will see its birth in the autumn of 2018:
ÖTILLÖ Swimrun World Series 2018
Six qualifying races to ÖTILLÖ:
ÖTILLÖ Swimrun Hvar, Croatia, 8 April 2018
ÖTILLÖ Swimrun Utö, Sweden, 20 May 2018
ÖTILLÖ Swimrun Isles of Scilly, UK, 10 June 2018
ÖTILLÖ Swimrun Engadin, Switzerland, 8 July 2018
ÖTILLÖ Swimrun 1000 Lakes, Germany, 30 September 2018 (qualifier to ÖTILLÖ 2019)
ÖTILLÖ Swimrun Cannes; France – 21 October 2018 (first edition)
At each World Series event a sprint and experience race is organised on the previous day.
