Five Cally swimmers headed to Lago d’Orta in the Piedmont region of Northern Italy. Lago d’Orta is a stunningly picturesque lake with its own island town near the centre.
The race is a 27km swim up one side of the lake and then back down the other. 23 solo swimmers entered the event along with ten relay teams all (apart from one) made up of three swimmers. There was a mix of those in wetsuits and those swimming skins.
The rules for the relay teams meant that each swimmer would swim for an hour and then the next would take over. The team members not swimming would stay on the boat next to the swimmer and get a chance to rest and refuel.
The solo swimmers started first on Saturday morning , each accompanied by kayakers to guide them and look after their nutrition. The relay teams headed off shortly after.
The two Cally teams led out from the start and had gained a healthy lead by the first change-over after an hour. The two-man team then started to forge ahead and by the half-way mark both Cally teams were well-out in front of the rest of the field.
Towards the end of the race all members of the relay teams were able to swim the final part together and so Lorenzo and Nils swam in together for a first place finish in a time of a little over 6 hours. Csaba, Alex and Luka joined them around 30 minutes later, followed by the first solo swimmer around another half-an-hour after them.
It was an amazing race to take part in and the organisers were delighted to have two teams coming over from London and made up of five different nationalities.
We’d highly recommend it to other swimmers looking for a long-distance relay or challenging solo swim!