Cape Town - The Torpedo SwimRun Series is growing, with the recent announcement that the newest event, Torpedo SwimRun Val de Vie, will be happening on February 3 at the well-known Franschhoek lifestyle estate.
The event is set to draw both competitive athletes and beginner swimrunners who want to try out the sport.
Swimrun is a relatively new sport that originated in Sweden, and offers off-road and open-water adventure along coastal and inland waterways, with routes designed around the natural environment and with distances varying from race to race. Growing rapidly in popularity, there are now 450 races around the globe. Torpedo launched the first SwimRun in Cape Town in 2017, with a national Series rolling out from 2018.
November 18 will see the third edition of the pinnacle Torpedo SwimRun Cape take place. This event has grown significantly since the inaugural event in January 2017, and now attracts top athletes who will be competing for R100k in prize money.
Former Olympic swimming gold medalist Ryk Neethling, marketing director for Val de Vie, has entered the November Torpedo SwimRun Cape event and is happy to be hosting a Torpedo SwimRun on the Franschhoek estate next year.
“At Val de Vie we are promoting a healthy outdoor lifestyle and to that end we host trail runs, have developed more than 40km of mountain bike (MTB) trails, host the polo as well as our monthly markets.
‘‘To add a Torpedo SwimRun event is a great fit for us,” he said.
Richard McMartin, co-founder of Torpedo SwimRun, said: “One of the reasons we are so thrilled about Val de Vie as our next event, is that this one will make SwimRun so much more accessible to new participants: the swimming is in dams with the longest swim being 400m ...
"We are also able to cater for a larger number of athletes. The longest run is 3km. With 2kms of swimming in total, and 8km of total running, the whole race is 10km.”
* Entries are now open for Torpedo SwimRun Val de Vie at https://torpedoswimrun.com/val-de-vie/