Athlete Neil Agius attempts world-record swim Saturday

Ultra-endurance athlete and clean seas activist Neil Agius will attempt a world record swim around the entire Maltese archipelago on Saturday.

Agius will set out shortly after 8am tomorrow morning leaving from the shallow waters of Mellieħa Bay.

He will then head south east and clockwise around Malta towards Gozo before heading back to Malta.

The route around the entire archipelago is 104 km, but Agius is planning to swim a total distance of 160km. The gruelling challenge is expected to take three days.

The announcement comes as Malta is covered by rain clouds, but a team of weather analysts believe that as of tomorrow (Saturday) the conditions will be ideal for Agius to attempt the swim.

“We have been analysing the weather conditions and looked at every step of the route Neil will be swimming. There will be some tough spots of weather but this three-day window that starts on Saturday gives him the best possible chance,” said Gordon Bugeja, who heads logistics for Team Neil.

If successful, Agius will break the current world record for the longest non-stop, unassisted, current neutral sea swim, which he himself holds.

Neil set that record when he swam from Linosa to Malta for a distance of 125.7km in 2021 and finished in Xlendi in Gozo.

Since then, there have been several attempts, including two earlier this year, but no one has managed to break this record ocially.

This will be Agius’s first attempt at breaking the record after he was forced to abandon a similar swim in Spain last year.

“This is the first time anyone has ever attempted to swim around the entire Maltese archipelago and it is the first time that I will be attempting to set a new world record right here at home,” Agius said.

“I have been training hard, and the entire team has been working on this for months. Now is the right time to do this,” he added.

Agius is using the swim to raise awareness about the state of Malta’s marine habitat aiming to raise awareness about critical environmental issues and inspire a collective commitment to protecting the Mediterranean Sea.

Central to Agius’s preparation has been his self-developed ‘Ocean Mindset’ technique – a mental framework that complements his intense physical training.

This set of tools helps Agius stay mentally sharp, navigate challenges, and confront the unexpected obstacles that come with this kind of world-first attempt. There is no blueprint for a swim of this magnitude, and Agius has trained his mind to handle the unprecedented.