The story of Sabina and Alexis
It’s been a six years long journey, but this year, both Sabina Rapelli and her boyfriend Alexis Charrier reached the goal of becoming the World Champions of swimrun. Sabina in a team with Desirée Andersson and Alexis with Matthieu Poullain. Even if they didn’t race together as a team this year, the teamwork and partnership over the years made the 2024 victory possible.
This is their story.
Sabina – I started doing gymnastics when I was 5 yrs old, continuing with artistic gymnastics until I was 18. Artistic gymnastics include floor exercises that can be really tough on the body. After two ankle injuries I was really struggling to come back. After the third one I said enough, I stop.
I switched to another type of gymnastics (more focused on rings and other equipment). This training was less demanding and I was able to focus more on school and at the same time reach the very top level, competing on a national level in Switzerland.
At some point I felt like I had reached my maximum level in gymnastics and started looking for a new challenge. I found endurance sports! I could do my cycling, running and swimming before school or at my lunch break. Studying to be a PE teacher I knew I needed my body for work, swapping gymnastics for endurance sports was also a way to try and stay away from more serious injuries.
In 2018, I was training for an Ironman and the coach I had at the time suggested I try swimrun. It’s a good way to improve your endurance, he said! I signed up for some races with his girlfriend (who was also training for triathlon) aiming to do Engadin together.
Alexis – It took my dad about a year to convince me but in 2017 I did my first swimrun race with him in Costa Brava, Spain. I was a sprint swimmer at the time, doing maximum 200 m in the pool. The race he signed us up for was 42 km … It took us a while to finish!
Up until I was 16 I was doing mostly swimming and rugby. When I started swimrun I hadn’t really done much running outside of the rugby field and I really hated it!.
We met in 2019
Sabina – I had qualified for Ötillö World Champs with my Swiss friend in Engadin but three weeks before the race she got injured. I started looking for a new partner and the only one brave enough to race with someone unknown was Cassandra Eliasson, a Swedish open water swimmer. Cassandra didn’t speak much English and we just made a list of a few words and signs to use during the race! We only met the day before the race, could barely communicate but we still managed to finish the race in a pretty good time for two beginners!
This was my first time in Sweden and the first time I got to experience the rocks of the Stockholm archipelago. I was hooked! After the race I met some people from Envol and I was encouraged to join the team.
A few weeks later I wrote to Nicolas, asking him to coach me, to help me improve in the sport. I also asked him if he had some athlete that I could team up with for the 2019 season. Nicolas told me about a guy from France that just joined the team a few weeks before. I did a swimrun race with Alexis in the beginning of the year and we won! After the race we kept talking a lot and we decided to do the season of 2019 together, trying to qualify for the World Championships.
We were really dedicated with the training and we could see that we were close to the strongest teams in the mixed category. We did Utö that year, it was very cold but we managed to arrive sixth in a very strong mixed field. If we worked hard we knew we could do even better. We started to train a lot. That year we finished 10 min from the podium in the World Championships. But of course we wanted to do even better!
At some point during this time our athletic relationship became something more …
Alexis – When Sabina and I started training and racing together we quite immediately realised that we were going to take this as far as we can! We are really competitive, the both of us. In 2019 we did between 15-20 races with quite a few podiums and we came in 4th at World Champs. In 2020 I moved to Switzerland to be with Sabina, so we were able to train a lot more together.
Ötillö Catalina in 2020 was a memorable race! Sabina and I won the mixed, Desirée and Fanny the female and Nicolas and Francesc won the male category. On top of everything it was Nicolas birthday!
Living AND training together
Sabina – It is sometimes hard to have your life partner as your training (and competition) partner. If training is not going well for him and he’s not reaching his goals … you need to be considerate and maybe not talk too much about the great results you are achieving. You also need to be able to switch from training to private mode when you arrive home after a training session. But it’s also beautiful to share a passion and to be able to share a lot of adventures together!
It is very emotional to race with your life partner. Good and bad! Sometimes these emotions need to be controlled … It is easier to get angry with your boyfriend during a race if things aren’t going well, compared to another race partner.
If the race didn’t go well you need to be able to leave this at the door when you come back home.
Alexis – Living with a partner who has equally high training goals has two sides. It definitely helps the day your motivation is low to have someone there to push you to go. Skipping training because you are tired after a long day is not an option. Especially since we race together, you don’t want to let your partner down by not doing the training.
Even this year, when we didn’t race together it was good to have someone equally invested in their training, pushing you to go.
The downside is that you not only have to deal with your own expectations when it comes to training results and racing performance, you also need to deal with your partners! It can cause conflict or friction. Even though you experience it yourself it can sometimes be difficult to understand another person’s feelings connected to performance. If one of us is suddenly missing motivation it can be hard to understand – “we are aiming for the same goal, why aren’t you as motivated and inspired as me today?”
Overall the positive sides win. You just need to be able to communicate and understand each other. Like with everything in a relationship!
Memories from the path to victory
Sabina – I have raced the Ötillö World Championships six times!
Once with Cassandra, three times with Alexis, once with Eugenie Plane and once with Desirée.
So many beautiful memories from all the races. The first time was brutal because it was the first but I still enjoyed it so much, even if I could barely walk the day after! I could not walk down the stairs! It was the first time I experienced this type of pain! I got to know Cassandra during the race, a great way to make a new friend.
I had many good moments but also bad ones with Alexis. Our goals were always high and we were pushing hard. We always managed to overcome the bad moments and in the end the memories are great.
I really suffered during the race I did with Eugenie, due to the fact that I was sick – from beginning to end – I could not enjoy the course that year due to really bad stomach ache. It was really hard mentally after the race. I had trained and invested so much for this race and then I was not able to enjoy any of it.
Never give up
The most beautiful lesson I learned from these six world championships was in 2021, when Alexis and I were the “outsiders”, we were unknown and not at all favourites. In the beginning we were quite far behind the top teams but then we started to catch up. We never lost our goal of the podium and managed to stay motivated. It’s a long race, even if you lose a paddle in the first swim you should not give up! It was not fun to tell Alexis I only had one paddle when we exited the first swim! I then focused on staying super close to his feet and increasing the cadence so as not to lose speed. In the end we ended up swimming faster than the other mixed teams! If you stay focused and positive a lot is possible! Never give up!
Alexis – I’ve done five world champs, 2018 – 2024 (2020 didn’t happen obviously due to Covid). Sabina and I did three, 2019, 2021 and 2022. 2023 I did it with William Even and 2024 with Matthieu Poullain.
In 2023 I got my paddle ripped off in the first swim. I’m normally a person who stays quite calm during a race, but this time I let the frustration get the better of me. We ran way too fast to make up the lost time and it just killed me. I couldn’t finish the race. Mentally it took a long time for me to recover from that. We were going for the win and weren’t even able to finish. It was the main event of the year with so much preparation behind it.
In terms of weather conditions this year, 2024 was the worst! Very cold water with high winds and waves. Rain the first 3 ½ h.
Ötillö is a long race, you need to keep calm because getting frustrated can waste more energy than anything else.
Eventually your time will come! If you are persistent.
Racing with a partner is a big part. Really make the most out of the teamwork. It’s great to share this experience with another person.
Sabina – A lot of time and effort has gone into reaching the moment where we are now. I wouldn’t call it sacrifice because it’s done from passion. Sure it takes time from other things in life because training takes time! It’s beautiful doing it together. We know each other, our dedication. We proved it over the last six years! It’s amazing to have this big victory in the same race. Even if we didn’t compete together this year it’s a team effort for the two of us. We have been working hard for this since 2019. This year we reached the end of the journey.
We don’t have a fixed goal for next year, but we really enjoy doing swimrun so I’m sure there will be plenty of it! We didn’t really talk about it! One thing is for sure, we won’t stop swimrun.
Alexis – Right now there is a feeling of satisfaction. We have been going after this for five years. To finally get that victory is a real sense of accomplishment. I’m not sure we actually realise yet!
We still have a couple of race in us this year, swimrun and trail running. Next year I think our racing will be more about exploring new races and places. Less focus on performance and more on the experience.
Team Envol and the Creator
Sabina – Nicolas Remires and Team Envol have played a big part over the years.
Nicolas was our “creator”! I met Alexis thanks to Nicolas and he dedicated a lot of time teaching us about swimrun. He has been with us in this journey, pushing the both of us to improve. It has been great to be part of Team Envol. In the beginning we were always behind some of the really good athletes on the team, but it was such a great inspiration for us. It’s thanks to Team Envol that we had the chance to have so many adventures and to grow in this sport.
Alexis – I probably wouldn’t have met Sabina if it wasn’t for Nicolas. He, and Team Envol have been supporting us for the last five years. He’s been there for us whenever we needed him, even when we weren’t expecting it! We met a lot of great people thanks to the “Blue Nation”. So yeah, I’m thankful I met Nicolas Remires on the boat to Isles of Scilly in 2018!
