Close Racing at ÖTILLÖ Swimrun Engadin
Press Release / 02.07.2024
The French National Swimrun Champions Jerome Gueguen and Arnaud de Lustrac showed an amazing performance and won the ÖTILLÖ World Series race, less than three minutes ahead of David Pesquet and Thomas Deffains, also from France, and Viktor Törneke and Johan Skårbratt from Sweden.
Warm and sunny weather, with air temperatures around 24 degrees, made for an ideal race day in the beautiful Engadin valley. 450 athletes from 28 nations participated in the three race distances World Series, Sprint and Experience.
The very demanding World Series course started in the host town Silvaplana and took the racers on a journey through the Upper Engadin valley, covering a total race distance of 43 km. The racers had to master 38 km of partly very technical trail running and 5 km of swimming across 9 swim sections in Lake Silvaplana, Lake Champfèr and Lake Sils.
The day was a perfect display of what swimrun is about: wonderful people, racing together through beautiful nature, helping each other through the ups and downs of a challenging race, like Jerome and Arnaud described it after the race:
Jerome Gueguen commented, “It can only be a good day because in the end we won but it was rough, the whole thing is so hard but beautiful and Arnaud helped me so much. I wasn't having the best day but he was so strong today which helped me so much, I can only thank him.”
Arnaud de Lustrac continued: “It was not just about helping my partner, Jerome is my best friend, we've known each other since we were young so it is an epic day out with your bro and that is all we can ask for, incredible memories being out there with your friend. If you see he is struggling a bit you want to give even more because you want to help your friend. We are going to talk about this race for years and years to come because it was an epic day."
In the mixed category the German/Swiss duo of Ben Thiesmeyer and Delia Guggenheim repeated their win from last year, showing an impressive performance right from the start and leading the mixed category from start to finish. Second were Donato Campanini and Katharina Heining from Sweden, who decided to team up at the last minute as Katharina's usual race partner Jacob Langeloh got injured. The French and Spanish duo of Clément Bach and Mar Soriano Martinez (ESP) completed the podium.
Ben Thiesmeyer said, "It was awesome, this race is so beautiful, it was awesome to race with Delia again, it was awesome to win it again, we didn't expect that but it was a great time, even more beautiful than last year....as a team over the course of a race like this you are supporting and challenging each other to get to the finish line."
Only two teams participated in the women’s category, Hannah Donnelly and Kirsty Hett from Great Britain managed to complete the long course and win the womens' category in 7 hours and 32 minutes over Diana Orrling and Leonie Selting from Sweden (8:20:26).
Claire Jacquin from France and Daniel Rowland from Switzerland won female and male categories in the solo race. For Daniel Rowland it was his second win in Engadin after last year.
The next race of the ÖTILLÖ Swimrun World Series 2024 will be held in Whistler, Canada on July 7th.
