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Best and Most Impactful Female Marathon Swimmers
AnthonyMcCarley
Berwyn, PACharter Member
Admittedly, I don't have a definition to offer up. Nevertheless, because of a current event, I am curious who this group holds up as some of the best and most impactful female marathon swimmers. Who is on your list?
Not in order, but to get the ball rolling... here are a few names that come to mind...
Cox, Thomas, McCardel, Fry, Palfry, Ederle, Elionsky, Streeter, Van Der Byl, Pitonof, Chadwick...
Comments
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Excellent and timely question! Agree with all of the above, and I would add:
Cindy Cleveland, Marcy MacDonald, Penny Dean, Caroline Block, Greta Andersen, Tina Neill, Vicki Keith, Meda McKenzie, Tita Llorens, Pat Gallant-Charette, Marilyn Bell, Cindy Nicholas, Linda Kaiser, Michelle Macy, Elaine Howley, Colleen Blair, Sal Minty-Gravett, Shelley Taylor-Smith, Suzanne Heim-Bowen, Marcia Cleveland, Irene van der Laan.
Tammy van Wisse, Beth French, Kimberley Chambers..
Shelley Taylor Smith. The first and greatest. She beat all of the men including me (just once ?).
Pioneer in Spain was Montserrat Tresserras (1950's & 60'): 1st to swim Gibraltar, English Channel (both ways), Menorca Channel.
She tried Eivissa - Spain mainland in 1965, but quit after 55 hours.
In https://longswims.com/p/montserrat-tresserras-dou/ I'm missing: Concordia - Colón (Argentina-Uruguay, 1963); Santa Fe - Coronda (Argentina, 1962); Santa Fe - Rosario (Argentina, 1963); Loch Ness (1969). (Though I'm not sure if, for all these swims, conditions apply for the DDBB. She swam in Windermere too, and other lakes in UK, but I haven't found the distances. @evmo , if you want I could try to find out, to add those swims to the longswimsDB - and sorry for the slightly-off topic.)
dieciseisgrados.com/
Slightly off-topic too, but I find suitable to link here this beautiful video directed, filmed and danced by French freediver Julie Gautier:
Released 3 years ago this day, and which she dedicated to all the women of the world.
dieciseisgrados.com/
Great nomination @bruno, and yes, if you have the details on her independent swims (or know where to find them), we can see about adding them to the database.
Date, Start Location, Finish Location, Elapsed Time are the important ones. Original news reports are also helpful.
Specific start and finish locations are preferred over claimed/reported distances because distances measured in previous decades are often inaccurate. I measure it myself with modern tools.
Loch Ness will need additional scrutiny because she is not on the BLDSA list, so the question would be, why is that.
Jaimie Monahan
I don't have a name to add, but I do think it's important to note that these women are not only top female marathon swimmers. Some are among the top marathon swimmers regardless of gender.
Marathon swimming is a great equalizer.
@bruno Maybe off topic, but thanks for adding this. I've never seen this before. It's beautiful.
What to sey about : Yvetta Hlavacova?!?
EC - 7h.25min! Not too bad!
My opinion)
Actually, respectfully, not just among the best, some are the best.
Sarah Thomas, Jenny Landreth....
Pat Gallant-Charette for sure!
<))><
That is very .very interesting discussion!
All this womans are Great!
But...( today i swim for first time from 20days...) was cool and i swim so slow and have a lot time to think!
For me Sarah Thomas is unreal!
This 4EC are not from this world for me!
Ps Know Why i not swim 20days?
Guess......Covid19!
If someone made discussion for first time or week.month after Covid rest.how u feel in water! Will be interesting!
I feel great in water today!
Was decide to swim 1km.but swam 5km!) In home and work feel bad.but in h2o was diferent!
My Covid was so crazy. I have all.but changing each day to another!
Ok health and all the best to all
Anna-Carin Nordin..
Considering those in Hong Kong only:
Best: Tsz Yin Nip (ranked 37th in 2019 FINA/CNSG Marathon Swim World Series)
Most Impactful: Edie Hu (her involvement helped the growth of the open water swimming community in Hong Kong tremendously)
Susie Maroney.
Keep moving forward.