Ö-18: A short history of SwimRun in NL - part 2 🇬🇧
From 'Eilandentriathlon' to 'Het Rondje Eilanden'
In this Substack, SwimRun duo Sander and Bart blog weekly about their journey to the starting line of the Ötillö, the birthplace of the sport in Sweden. In 2025, it will once again serve as the World Championship of SwimRun. We are sharing training tips and SwimRun events, including those in the Netherlands, hoping to accelerate the growth of this relatively new sport.
De Nederlandse versie vind je HIER.
This week, we continue the history of SwimRun in the Netherlands.
In part 1, we discussed the birthplace of SwimRun in the Netherlands: the ‘Eilandentriathlon’ in Vinkeveen. Part 2 covers the arrival of "Het Rondje Eilanden" ("The Island Loop"): a race over the same course (albeit in the opposite direction and with a different start/finish location), but without the cycling — and with a party afterwards.
In 2001, we saw the last edition of the Eilandentriathlon. Years later, I found out this was mainly due to health issues of Hans van Veen, the event’s chief organizer. Fortunately, he recovered later on, but increasing government regulations and difficulties obtaining permits for the cycling course prevented a return of this race.
I competed in the Island Triathlon while still living in Enschede, where I was studying at the time. But in 2006, I moved to Utrecht and started training with Triathlon Club Hellas. From Utrecht, I could cycle 25 km along the river Vecht to Vinkeveen. Occasionally, a friend from Amsterdam and I would complete a swim and run loop around the islands. I wouldn't recommend doing the loop solo, due to the risks involved with open-water swimming alone.
In 2011, my personal life wasn’t going well — a break-up and a few moves to different houses were the causes of uncertainty. I’ll spare you the details, but it wasn’t a fun period. Luckily, I stayed physically fit and could still enjoy endurance sports. That summer, I once again cycled from Utrecht to Vinkeveen, did the island loop with my Amsterdam friend, and cycled back. At that time, I still shared custody of my firstborn but otherwise had fewer obligations. I decided to channel my energy into something that made me happy. That magical swim and run loop deserved a real race!
By chance, I came across a call from the newly founded Woelig Water Foundation in Vinkeveen, who wanted to organize more events around the Vinkeveense Plassen. Well, I had an idea! So one evening, I biked over for a public meet-and-greet and brainstorming session with the board.
It turned out the Foundation was more focused on cultural events: they planned a New Year’s Dive and "Film aan de Plas" — a floating film festival where you could anchor your boat near Island 1 (having a boat is fairly common in Vinkeveen). Still, they were enthusiastic about the race idea, and thus "Het Rondje Eilanden" was born.
Maybe it wasn't just chance — the Foundation’s chairwoman’s father was Cock Griffioen of Marina Winkeloord, who had, alongside Hans van Veen, been a driving force behind the Eilandentriathlon. With his experience in logistics and equipment, things could start up quickly. The rest of the board — Marjo, Ad, Yordi, and chairwoman Mariska — added a cultural twist with live music, food, and side events, a side of the event that would only grow over time.
For the ‘race’ part, I found a group of enthusiastic co-organizers at TV Hellas: Pieter, Rudo, Martine and Bastian. Without them, the race would have never succeeded — they had a much better grasp of logistics, municipal bureaucracy, and, crucially, volunteer coordination.
I contributed digitally by building the first website. I'm very proud that I managed to come up with the event name "Het Rondje Eilanden" and the abbreviation "HRE." Some wanted a ‘tougher’ name, preferably in English, but I felt this Dutch down-to-earth name was a perfect fit.
Many people apparently thought it had always been called "het rondje eilanden" instead of the Eilandentriathlon. A great example is this 2012 article on the Rondeveen website 0297.nl (in Dutch), found by Sander, which talks about "the return of the island loop." Check out the video in it too — featuring footage of my father Sjoerd van der Wal, edited by athlete Koen van Meeuwen (now an ultra-endurance athlete himself), and music by elite athlete and guitarist Tijs Groen — one of the first performers at Het Rondje Eilanden.
That first year, we had 300 participants. Not because of my promo videos (still only 20 subscribers after 13 years 😉), but thanks to the history of the Eilandentriathlon, the unique swim-run format, and the cheerful local spectators.
In recent years, I was no longer part of the organization, only helping out as a volunteer on race day. Recently, I've been reconnecting with the new enthusiastic organization team — still with Cock, but now joined by Marianne, Hanc, Isabel, Mirthe, Daniel, Michiel, and others who dedicate time and energy to Het Rondje Eilanden Island Festival year-round.
This blog is already getting long, but the history isn’t finished yet. The switch from branding it "the most beautiful swim-and-run race in the Netherlands" to "the most beautiful SwimRun in the Netherlands" came later. While in 2011 the term "SwimRun" was coined in Sweden by Erika Rosenbaum when they began marketing their "Ö till ö" as a SwimRun race, back in Holland, we organized a SwimRun trial event in July with about 25 enthusiasts. Encouraged by the turnout, we decided to create a real race in 2012.
Over the years, Het Rondje grew from 300 participants to more than double. Other Vinkeveen events sadly disappeared — "Film aan de Plas," for example, ended in 2016. As a result, Het Rondje Eilanden remains the last event run by the Woelig Water Foundation. The video shows the creativity and spirit of the original event, coming from both the athletic and cultural sides, and that spirit still lives on!
In the early years, the focus was mostly on the competition, with Dutch top athletes like Maya Kingma and Marco Akershoek participating. Later on, Erik Schröder dominated the men’s race, and Elianne Huitema and Deborah Wissink won the women's race three times each. However, the focus seemed to be shifting towards side events. The organizers started working on booking new artists and live acts to come to Vinkeveen.
I personally came up with the idea of a final for the fastest 30 men and women, who, in the first year, had to complete another full loop in the afternoon. In later years, this became a shorter course around Island 1, while the other competitors already started partying. That final round eventually disappeared, especially when the Covid-pandemic forced the organization to experiment with formats like all-day flexible starts and racing in pairs.
As a fairly competitive athlete, I sometimes missed the competitive focus. Yet, the expansion into a 3-day festival with 100+ people camping on Island 1 was a huge success. And of course, the fact that the event continued uninterrupted, leading us to the upcoming 14th edition in 2025: Het 14e Rondje Eilanden (#H14RE).
By becoming a festival, Het Rondje Eilanden was ahead of its time not just in SwimRun but on other fronts too. One of the most recent Pacer podcast episodes, for example, features an interview with entrepreneur Frank Dros, who’s tapping into the growing trend of sport and healthy living among the TikTok- and Instagram-generation. He's organizing "maybe the first running festival" in Rotterdam this September (‘The Van Nelle Faive K’). Sadly, no swimming there — but still a cool initiative.
I’m very happy that during H13RE, a sporty innovation was introduced: the possibility of doing two loops. This year, for the first time classic SwimRun gear like pull buoys and paddles will be allowed during the double loop!
In Vinkeveen, we now have a great balance between hardcore sport and recreation, with both the classic single loop — still done "old school" in a Speedo or swimsuit and surf shoes or Vibram FiveFingers — and the double ‘SwimRun’ loop.
Next week, newcomers to the double loop can read about the gear Sander and I would use, in a special GEAR blog post. In the following weeks, we’ll close out this history series with the first long-distance SwimRun event in Lauwersoog in 2017 and the growth of SwimRun events in the Netherlands since then.