Polish athlete wins the Maltese Backyard Ultra endurance race

With a score of 207.886 km, 31 laps, Patryk Świętochowski won the Backyard Ultra in Malta, a race where competitors are to run a distance of 6,706 m (4.167 miles) in less than one hour and repeat this process until they are unable to keep it up any longer. This is the first-ever victory for a Pole at a foreign event in this formula.

“The whole race passed in relative comfort, all loops under 44 min and a lot of strength remaining, which makes me very happy. If I find an opponent, I'm ready to run over 300 km,” the Polish athlete wrote on social media.

Patryk Świętochowski from 🇵🇱Poland has won 🇲🇹Malta's Backyard Ultra race with the final result of 207,886 km‼️

This is the first time in history that a Polish runner wins a Backyard Ultra race👏

A race with no official end, a Backyard Ultra is a last person standing challenge. pic.twitter.com/VsC7wWfzjc

— PLinMalta (@PLinMalta) December 13, 2022

“Finally, a big thank you to everyone who supports me and believed from the start that I was capable of winning. I hope I didn’t disappoint. I also thank the people of Malta for helping me with logistics and organisation, without your support victory would have been much more difficult,” he added.

In his Facebook post, Świętochowski cited one of his favourite quotes from Sri Chinmoy - “Determination and impossibility are never to be found together”. The other two podium spots were awarded to two Maltese runners. Mark Bezzina came in second, improving his country’s record by three hours, and David Micallef came in third, after having endured 187 kilometres.