A Wild New Race Emerges in Sweden’s Archipelago with EX Swimrun Founder Nicholas Roman

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Instagram: @roman_nicholas, @exswimrun

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Nicholas Roman is the founder and CEO of EX Swimrun, one of the most innovative race organizations in the sport, based in the Swedish archipelago where swimrun itself was born. He’s an entrepreneur, a lifelong island dweller, and a race director who believes the ultimate test of a course is whether it’s so compelling you can’t help but race it yourself—which he does.

This August, I’ll be on his start line, racing EX Swimrun and turning it into a family trip to Stockholm, bringing my kids into the heart of the archipelago 

So this conversation is both an interview and a kind of reconnaissance mission—inside the mind of the man designing the course I’ll soon be swimming and running across.

We talk about the evolution of swimrun gear, the future of open-world “safari” racing, why so many former triathletes are being drawn to the freedom of island-hopping, and how innovation can coexist with deep respect for Swedish outdoor tradition.