Lotte Corporation announced on the 12th that it held the ‘2026 Lotte Aquathlon’ at Seokchon Lake and Lotte World Tower in Jamsil, Songpa-gu, Seoul. Lotte Aquathlon began in 2022 and became an event officially hosted by the Korea Triathlon Association the following year. It is gaining popularity as a unique competition that combines ‘open water swimming’, which involves swimming two laps of Seokchon Lake’s East Lake (total of 1.5 km), and ‘Sky Run’, a vertical marathon that involves jumping up 2,917 stairs to the 123rd floor of Lotte World Tower. This year, over 1,000 people took up the challenge, including 86 people who attended for the third consecutive year and the oldest participant, Cha In-taek (79). As a result of the competition, Kim Wan-hyuk took first place in the men's division with a time of 42 minutes and 59 seconds, and in the women's division, Kim Tae-hyang took first place with a time of 46 minutes and 58 seconds. In the meantime, Lotte has been steadily carrying out projects to improve the water quality of Seokchon Lake by applying eco-friendly methods using photocatalysts. As a result, the transparency of Seokchon Lake has been maintained above 2m for the past five years. Kim Wan-hyuk, who won the competition for the second time this year after winning the competition in 2024, said, “It is so clean that you can see the bottom of Seokchon Lake.