Spocks Family – the roaming social media storyteller – has been covering the sport of swimrun for over four years now, but I can remember the exact moment when its appeal hit us over the head – and it’s a lot more recent than you might imagine.
From the moment the shotgun went off the first time we covered ÖTILLÖ, we immediately fell in love with this wonderful, crazy, demanding, exhilarating form of racing.
Many of us involved in bringing you the races live have spent our time stuck in the studio at the finish line or in the control room, but we never had the chance to experience the thrill of these races up-close.
That moment of revelation I mentioned came a few weeks back as we bounced across the waves off the coast of Hvar, Croatia, in a speedboat, with the sun beating down, sea water swelling around us and swim caps of our competitors bobbing on the tops of the waves.
It was then and there that many of us realised the full scale of the physical and mental demands the athletes place on themselves in challenging conditions, navigating a course as tough as it is beautiful.
All the while, we broadcast large chunks of the event live on the ÖTILLÖ Facebook page because this is what we do.
Ultimately, we want to know everything about this sport and the only limits we respect are those of our imagination.
Regardless of whether it is a multi-camera set-up with studio lights and fancy graphics, or a scaled-down Facebook Live broadcast using an iPhone and a cordless microphone, our goal is always to show you the heart of what is happening, and together with the race directors we seek out stories to tell, and then find a way to tell them.
It’s not always easy.
Sometimes we will be tested by the elements (one year our studio was blown down by gale force winds two hours before the race started), other times the technological gremlins will rear up and refuse to co-operate in some blacked-out corner of an island with no 3G.
When this happens, we draw on the vast wealth of experience we bring – from covering events in Svalbard and the Sochi Olympics to crowning Sweden’s best chef every year – to find a way.
Ultimately, we want to know everything about this sport and the only limits we respect are those of our imagination.
And at the centre of it all are the heroic athletes, from the elite and experienced to the dogged newcomers, who make every aspect of every race an odyssey in human nature.
We’ve been privileged to be part of these races over the last few years, and we look forward to being involved for many years to come.
For like the sport of swimrun, we’ve come a long way – but we’ve only just begun.
Article first published in Swimrun Life Magazine Issue #3 (July 2017)
