Swim Rio Challenge Inspires Swimmers

The build up to the Rio Olympics has been an exciting time and after the success of Team GB in London 2012, the nation was once again gripped by Olympic fever as the games came to the carnival city!

Earlier in the year we built the “Swim Rio” Challenge in preparation for Rio 2016 and encouraged our pools to get involved. Over 100 pools took part in the challenge which was run between 1st July and 5th August (the date of the opening ceremony) and we’re pleased to say that over 1600 SWIMTAG users got into the spirit, swimming the route that started at North Rio, passed Sugarloaf Mountain and Copacabana Beach and finished at Ipanema, all within view of the statue of Christ the Redeemer!

The challenge became one of our most popular almost overnight (beaten only by the Enhlish Channel Swim, the Giraltar Strait and “Escape from Alcatraz”.

The Swim Rio Challenge is one of dozens of challenges that have been mapped out by the SWIMTAG team. Some have been in iconic locations like the “Grand Canyon Swim” others have been local challenges for individual pools, who wanted to swim a body of water close to them. Challenge mapping is a free part of the service for all SWIMTAG pools!