Welcome to Kuopio Swimrun
website!
I'm Sampo Hyppölä, the race director of Kuopio Swimrun, Master of Pharmacy and a non-professional Swimrunner. The main page is reserved for my Finnish swimrun blog otherwise it's all about Kuopio Swimrun here!
In May 2018 after the snow had melted I was doing my first trailrun on my new backyard, Neulamäki nature reserve. Running along those hilly trails and by the beautiful lakes I made a decision: This landscape must be shared for swimrunners cause this is what swimrun is! Varied trails, pine and spruce forests, rocks, lakes, islands, hills...you name it! And all this totally wild nature located right behind the city of Kuopio.
Two months later Kuopio Swimrun was first time launched on the top of the hill Neulamäki with a small enthusiastic group of swimrunners all around the country. And they loved it! Since 2019 the competition centre was changed into the area of School Neulamäki where the infrastructure made it possible to bring up the event without sacrificing any meters of the lovely terrain. Kuopio Swimrun had become one of the major Finnish swimrun races with two different courses: Long 25km and Short 15km. Challenging hills and lovely swims gave birth to slogan: "Kill the Hills - Like the Lakes"
In 2022 Kuopio Swimrun launched a new race distance, Kuopio Swimrun Ultimate, including maraton of trail running, quarter maraton of swimming, 50 s/r-sections and 1200 vertical meters up and down. The winning time was set to 7 hours and 15 minutes by Team Last Run who take the fourth place in ÖtillÖ Swimrun World Championschips later the same year! In view of the hilly and technical terrain Kuopio Swimrun Ultimate is close to that challenge of 75 kilometers of the Swedish archipelago. It's certainly the toughest swimrun race in Finland!
2024 Kuopio Swimrun Ultimate 53 km distance has been assigned a status of World Championship race by the world's largest non-profit swimrun association My SwimRun Championships. In addition, all the courses in Kuopio will be Qualifier races for the 2025 World Championships races. GPS-tracking will be a brilliant way to follow this race all over the globe!
Feel free to decide your distance, the trails in the wilderness are ready for you! Are you?
Warmly welcome to the 7th Kuopio Swimrun 2024!
