Suddenly a dozen Swedes come out of the water on a beach in Begur, Calella de Palafrugell, Palamós, in short, on a beach on the Costa Brava and the scene sounds like a macho movie from the 60s, but it can't be more different. They wear short wetsuits, they wear buoys on the hips, shovels in their hands, a cap and swimming goggles, and at the same time they wear running shoes for the mountains. As soon as they touch the shore, they rush across the sand, climb onto the nearest rocks, climb the mountain, find a path, and jog down to the next beach and jump into the sea. 10, 20, 40 kilometers, what difference does it make? They are the Wild Women led by Fanny Kuhn , a Swedish resident in Barcelona and the sport they practice is swim run .

It is a combination of trail races and open water swimming, but without any transition: according to the regulations, you must reach the finish line with the same material that you had at the start. Due to the nature of the discipline, which has to be practiced in pairs, it is normal to train in a group, and Kuhn has taken advantage of this to create a group that meets two or three times a year on the beaches of northern Catalonia.

"I had always done swimming in the pool, then triathlon and when I started five years ago in the swim run I realized that, as in the previous two sports, there were not many women in this one either. I thought about creating a group and a couple of years I organized the first stage . Then came the second, the third and so on until it became something periodic. This summer the pandemic has slowed us down, but also in October we have a meeting scheduled. Many women come from Sweden, but also from Germany or England "Kuhn exposes with an extensive record in his discipline.

An alcoholic challenge

The same year in which he started, in 2015, he already finished third in a World Cup event and the following year he won, among others, the first race organized in Spain, the Swimrun Costa Brava 2016. He participated in several World Cups, won in one of them and in 2018 he became part of the Envol team, the first sponsored team in the sport.

That there is a sponsored swim run team , with the help of the Vivo Barefoot brand, may seem crazy in Spain, but it is not so crazy in Sweden, where the wild mix of swimming and running has thousands of practitioners. There was a reason that they invented it. Although the story is nothing epic: it starts with an alcoholic challenge.

On a long night in 2002, Anders Malm , owner of the Ütö Värdshus hotel, a friend of his, Janne Lindberg , and two of his employees, the Andersson brothers , challenged themselves to a couples race that would cover 26 of the many Swedish islands - between They Ütö, of course- and the next day they launched into the challenge with all the help material they had at home.

The idea was that the losing couple would pay the bill to the winner, who would wait at a restaurant having a feast, but after 75 kilometers of mountains and sea, neither were for binge eating. They ended up so devastated that the bet was forgotten, but there was one thing that the four did remember forever: they had just invented a sport. The following year they repeated, and the other, and the other, their challenge became an official career in 2006 and so on until today.

From Lanzarote to El Atazar

"The sport was born to link islands and that is why it has quite a pull in Sweden, but here in Spain it has potential in coastal areas with the mountains nearby. The Costa Brava is ideal, but there are tests in more places: Lanzarote, Castellón, the Delta of the Ebro and even in the reservoirs of Ullibarri Ganboa or El Atazar. In a few years it has expanded a lot and it is very interesting to see the evolution. People come from triathlons, from open water swimming, from trail ... ", explains Kuhn , with a problem: he lives in Barcelona.

She and her American husband moved to the city for a year and eventually stayed to work. She does it at Race.se, a Swedish start up that offers services to races around Europe. Anyone who knows the Barceloneta beach will know that near Kuhn you can find anything but a virgin mountain to run, but the Swedish athlete is satisfied by jogging on the sand and climbing the jetty.

Competition, in fact, is no longer so important. The important thing is to enjoy the race and swimming in its purest state and with its Wild Women group, get more and more women to accompany you. "The most fun is sharing the experience and seeing how people discover the swim run and enjoy it. It is a joy," Kuhn concludes that these days, like every summer, he is either striding up the mountains or giving strokes in the sea.

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