Active travel challenge covers more than 84,500km

Participants in this year’s OTwo Active Challenge walked, ran, hiked and cycled a combined 84,501km during the month-long campaign, with organisers estimating that their efforts avoided more than 14 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions.

The challenge brought together 926 participants, 58 clubs and 38 organisations, with winners announced at a reception at the Mediterranean Rowing Club on Thursday afternoon.

The campaign encouraged people to choose sustainable ways of travelling and increase their activity levels, with participants recording distances through Strava. Some entries had to be logged manually because of technical difficulties.

Individuals competed alongside colleagues and club members, with weekly leaderboard updates providing an incentive to keep moving.

Many participants said their involvement was less about winning than taking part and doing something that felt good.

“As we celebrate this year’s achievements, the ambition is to build on this momentum, encourage even more people to embrace active travel and make walking, running and cycling an increasingly natural part of everyday life in Gibraltar,” OTwo, the organisers, said in a statement.

Ian Appleton, representing UCM, won the individual cycling category after covering 1,662.8km. Rafael Jimenez, representing Diabetes, finished second with 1,545.4km, followed by Guy Thomas of PEB with 1,417.1km.

The individual run, walk and hike category produced a close finish, with Simandra Busto of Thinking Green completing 635.4km, just 2.6km ahead of Faye Morse of Carpe Diem. Louise Richardson, representing Entain, finished third with 561.1km.

CROC won the sports club cycling award with 2,271km, while It’s Us Who Set the Limits topped the sports club run, walk and hike category with 2,195.4km.

The Gibraltar Chronicle won the organisation cycling award after completing 661.5km.

Walk 4 Ben took the organisation award for running, walking and hiking, with a five-woman team of former Loreto Convent pupils covering 1,225km.

The women finished ahead of the Chronicle’s four-person team, which had led the leaderboard the previous week.

Stephen Warr, chief executive of the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Climate Change, supported the ceremony and helped present the awards. He spoke about the benefits of active travel for the environment, health and wellbeing.

Each participating organisation received a certificate recording its team’s total distance and the estimated equivalent emissions avoided.

Across the two Active Travel Month campaigns, participants have now covered 172,501km, with organisers estimating a combined saving of 29.33 tonnes of carbon dioxide.

The campaign also included a community run, walk and cycle event supporting GBC Open Day. Hoppy provided free active travel for participants.

Fundraising raised £1,850 each for Diabetes Gibraltar and the Gibraltar Cardiac Association through raffle ticket sales and an initiative led by EBike’s Stuart Hedley.

Mr Hedley represented EBike-Gibraltar and the GiBromptonians at the 2026 Brompton World Championship in London, with support from Pragmatic Play, Xapo Bank, Peninsula.360 and Ibex Insurance.

Organisers thanked campaign sponsor AMA Group, participating clubs and organisations, and everyone who took part or encouraged others.

“Every journey counts, every kilometre matters, and together, little Gibraltar can make a big difference to our environment,” the statement said.