Neil Agius conquers Gozo 7: 74 km swim unites Malta’s sister island in record-breaking eco-feat

Watch: Neil Agius completes his Gozo 7 challenge – a Maltese odyssey that united two islands in awe

By 04:30 yesterday, the usually quiet slipway at Mġarr ix-Xini was humming. Fishermen paused mending their nets, pastizzi were passed round in foil packets, and a small flotilla of traditional dgħajjes bobbed expectantly beside sleek RIBs. Everyone was waiting for one man: Neil Agius. The Għarb native had already swum the circumference of Gozo seven times over the previous 48 hours, a total of 74 kilometres, and was about to complete the final 200-metre stretch that would etch his name into local folklore forever.

The Gozo 7 challenge was conceived last winter in a Marsaxlokk café after a plate of rabbit stew and too many Cisk. Agius, fresh from his 2022 world-record 130 km non-stop swim from Linosa to Malta, wanted something different—something that would weave every Gozitan village, cove and cliff into a single narrative. “I wanted the swim to feel like a festa on water,” he told Hot Malta moments after staggering onto the limestone steps, lips blue but eyes blazing. “Where every buoy is a band club and every feed stop is a kazin.”

That vision played out spectacularly. In Xlendi, residents lined the promenade banging frying pans, an echo of the village’s 1980s protest against over-development. At Dwejra, divers held waterproof torches to illuminate the Azure Window’s ghostly remains. In Marsalforn, children released 74 biodegradable paper boats—one for every kilometre—into the night surf. By the time Agius rounded Comino’s Santa Marija Caves at dawn, farmers from Għasri were blasting għana ballads from their tractors parked on the cliff edge.

Local businesses felt the ripple instantly. Restaurants that usually close mid-week stayed open 24 hours; the Gozo Channel ferry ran an extra 3 a.m. service for spectators. Nadur mayor Edward Said declared a half-day public holiday, tweeting: “When one of us swims for the planet, the least we can do is cheer.” Even the Gozo Ministry got creative, live-streaming drone footage to screens in Valletta’s Triton Fountain so capital dwellers could watch “il-ħabib tagħna” battle swell and current.

Yet beneath the carnival lay a serious message. Each kilometre Agius swam was dedicated to a different local environmental issue—plastic at Ramla l-Ħamra, sewage near Mġarr harbour, coastal light pollution threatening shearwaters. NGOs set up information stalls every 10 km; volunteers in kayaks collected floating debris as they paddled alongside. “It’s not just sport,” said Nature Trust’s Vincent Attard, “it’s diplomacy with fins.” The finale saw schoolchildren from Gozo College form a human 7 on the slipway, holding up banners in Maltese: “Jekk jien nista’, tista’ wkoll.”

The cultural resonance was impossible to ignore. Gozitans have long felt overshadowed by their larger sister island; here was one of their own taking centre stage in a feat that could only happen here. Elderly fishermen compared Agius to the legendary Calypso who, myth says, kept Odysseus captive in Gozo’s caves—except this time the islander broke free not to leave, but to celebrate his home. Social media erupted with the hashtag #GħawdxijaFis-Sħiħ, a playful reminder that Gozitans are “whole Maltese” too.

By 05:17, as Agius touched the final buoy and was embraced by his tearful mother—wearing the traditional għonnella for the occasion—the statistics were staggering: 48 hours 27 minutes in water ranging from 16 °C to 19 °C, 74 km swum, 34 kg of pasta consumed by the support team, and zero single-use plastics. A spontaneous hymn, “Għawdex, Ommi”, broke out from the crowd, later trending on TikTok with accordion accompaniment.

Prime Minister Roberta Metsola phoned from Strasbourg, promising a national award. But the loudest cheer came when the parish priest of Għarb announced that next year’s village festa statue would be carried to the harbour in Agius’s honour, a maritime procession last held in 1957 for a miraculous tuna catch.

As the sun climbed over the Comino channel, painting the limestone gold, Gozo felt smaller and bigger at once—an island measured not by kilometres on a map but by the strokes of one of its sons. Agius, wrapped in the Maltese flag, summed it up perfectly: “I swam around Gozo seven times, but really, Gozo swam around me.”