Throwback Mixtape: In Memory of Max Andersson

A few weeks ago we did our in memoriam for Max Andersson. This week we are going back to the vault to share our first solo conversation with him, originally recorded in June 2022 — just a few months before he and Hugo Torment would go on to win every single ÖTILLÖ World Series race that year, including the World Championship, setting a course record of 7 hours and 1 second that still stands today.
This is the conversation that introduced a lot of our listeners to Max. He talks about how he got into swimrun in 2017 — at a time when he had never done a proper freestyle stroke in his life — and how he went from complete beginner to world champion in just a few years. He talks about what it was like to team up with Hugo, racing with Oscar, Adrian, and other legends of the sport, and what drew him to swimrun in the first place.
What comes through in every minute of this conversation is exactly what the swimrun community has been saying since we lost him in April. He was warm, generous, funny, and genuinely in love with the sport and the people in it. Competitive as anyone who has ever toed an Ötillö start line, but always in it for the right reasons.
We are grateful we got to know him. We hope this gives people who never got the chance a sense of who he was.
In memory of Max Andersson, 2022 Ötillö World Champion. Gone too soon.