STOCKHOLM- Standing at the start of the 2024 world championship in swimrun, waiting for the signal to start the race, she did not know what the coming 75 kilometers had to offer. But the age of 44, Lorraine Axegard, a former swimmer, unexpectedly became a world champion.
Swimrun is a sport that not many people know about. It was “invented” in 2002 as a drunken bet between four friends, and the idea was to swim and run between islands in Stockholm archipelago. No one knew that over 20 years later, people from all over the world would travel to Stockholm on the first Monday in September, to take on the 43 miles long course through cold water, tough trail and slippery cliffs.
There are three different categories at the swimrun world championship: Women, Men and Mixed. In the mixed category one woman and one man competes together, while the other categories only allow one gender. You compete as a team of two people for safety reasons, and you are only allowed to keep a 10-meter distance between you and your partner. All teams are allowed to keep a line in between each other, which means that the faster runner or swimmer can pull the other person forward.
Lorraine Axegard first started with swimrun in 2012 when one of her friends needed a partner for a swimrun race. Lorraine said, “I thought it sounded like a fun challenge”. However, it took her eight more years to fully start working towards making the world championship, which is called ÖtillÖ and translates to “Island to Island”.
The morning of September 2nd, 2024, was rainy. Lorraine and her husband Fredrik Axegard decided to be partners at the 2024 world championships. They were excited, nervous and determined to make it to the top five in the mixed category. However, Lorraine was not even supposed to compete this day because she had been focusing on an adventure race that took 36 hours to complete only one week before.
Fredrik Axegard says, “We had a carefully thought through plan, that was to push hard on the swimming and the trail-running, because those are our strengths as a team. While taking it easier on flat-ground running to get some recovery.”
The start signal went off at 5 a.m. and Lorraine states that, “I only had one thought in mind keep to the plan. However, it was hard since I fell in the beginning of the race.” Luckily, she could continue her race with only a few scratches. However, their biggest concurrents were more unfortunate. The female athlete in their team pulled her shoulder out of her joint on the first swim of the day and they had to quit. Which meant that Lorraine and Fredrik were leading after the first hour. A new thought came to mind, win.
Josefine Jangvert, a close friend to Lorraine, and a swimrunner says that, “Lorraine is very competitive, she goes all out from the beginning and you must push yourself hard to keep up with her.”
Eight hours and thirty-two minutes passed by until they finally crossed the finish line. They swam and ran in between 24 different islands and could finally call themselves the 2024 world champions of swimrunning in the mixed category.
After the race Lorraine could not even feel how tired she was because of all the adrenaline. She felt happy but also a bit shocked.
Josefine Jangvert says, “I believe that it went well for them because Lorraine was relaxed before. It was probably a good thing that she decided to do ÖtillÖ spontaneously, since the pressure of the race kind of disappeared.” Something that Lorraine herself also believes.
What the future of Lorraine’s swimrun career looks like is still unclear, she said “The past year after becoming a world champion has been rough for me. I hurt my foot and recently got the news that I have to operate it to be able to run again.” However, if there is one thing about Lorraine, she does not give up.
