Global Marathon Swimming Awards: 2012 WINNERS ANNOUNCED!

evmo

Donal and I are pleased to announce the winners of the First Annual Global Marathon Swimming Awards.

There is no physical "award" we will presenting, nor is there any monetary prize. So why should you care? Because these awards represent the respect of peers. This forum has always been for marathon swimmers, by marathon swimmers, and these awards are an extension of that.

There was no campaigning or electioneering for these awards. No voting multiple times. No voting by people who don't know anything about swimming. One forum member... one vote.

Congratulations to the following swimmers, whose peers decided they achieved something truly special in 2012:

<hr>
Female Solo Swim of the Year

Tina Neill - Unprecedented 52-mile swim from San Clemente Island to the California mainland

Male Solo Swim of the Year

Trent Grimsey - English Channel world record (6 hours, 55 minutes)

The Barra Award for most impressive body of work in 2012, considered as a whole

Grace van der Byl - New Catalina Channel overall world record; new records in all 7 stages (plus overall time) of the 8 Bridges Hudson River Swim

We would like to note that the Barra Award voting was extraordinarily close. Stephen Redmond was the runner-up to Grace by a margin of only two votes.

To view the other finalists and their nominations, click here.

smith

Congratulations to some amazing people!

KNicholas

Well deserved and I certainly am in awe of their accomplishments. Bravo!

AquaRob

that's a solid first class of award winners, congrats to Tina, Trent and Gracie!

ForeverSwim

Very well deserved awards to you all! CONGRATULATIONS!!

firebah

Tina and Grace are two of the humblest swimmers I know. Neither one would ever boast about their accomplishments despite each having huge bragging rights bestowed on them by their various swims. I am awed by both of them for their perseverance and generosity in the sport of marathon swimming.

Fil

Congrats to the winners. Congrats to the nominees. And thanks, Evan and Donal for undertaking this. It was inspiring to go through the nominations and see and feel what a remarkable year 2012 has been for open water marathon swimming.

heart

Congratulations to the winners, and to everyone who undertook impressive challenges in the water. What fun to have the time and privilege to do what we love!

evmo

Let this represent the conclusion of the 2012 marathon swimming awards "season." A sincere thank-you to everyone who voted or nominated someone. We're still very early into the New Year - but not too early to start thinking about nominees for the 2013 awards!

Remember, any swim that occurred after the conclusion of nominations for one year, is eligible to be nominated for the next year. Let's call this date December 1st.

For example, @Ned Denison's False Bay crossing in the last week of December could be nominated for 2013 (hint, hint!).

Also, if anyone is interested, @Loneswimmer and I recently posted an announcement of these results, with a bit of commentary, on our respective blogs:

• loneswimmer.com
• freshwaterswimmer.com

Cheers to all.

firebah

Excellent voting mechanism and precautions! The removal of the 'voting machines' makes this award very meaningful especially when you consider it comes directly from their peers who care enough to join the MSF and not from people who really have no clue about any of the candidates but are voting as told by someone promoting their choice.
When will you be accepting 2013 nominations for Ned? That was some swim!

BillShipp

Congratulations to all the winners! Inspiring swims by inspirational people!

IronMike

How much would three plaques cost? I bet you could get some donations from forum members to buy and mail off (if needed) plaques to these three deserving winners.

evmo

IronMike wrote:

How much would three plaques cost? I bet you could get some donations from forum members to buy and mail off (if needed) plaques to these three deserving winners.

Much less than the web hosting for this Forum costs me, I can tell you that

IronMike

Well, let me know if you guys want to do the plaque thing.

evmo

I guess what I mean to say, Mike, is that if we ever do solicit donations from Forum members, it would be to offset the cost of this website existing on the internet - which makes the Awards possible.

Just based on my own experience, I have more plaques than I have room for - and I was never anywhere near the caliber of swimmer that Tina, Trent, and Gracie are. Those folks could probably fill a room with their plaques and medals!

loneswimmer

In Dover last year, Trent had been travelling and racing for weeks with limited luggage. He had had to dump some of the trophies he'd won during that time. For those of us who are happy have a single Channel medal or club trophy, it's a different world.

IronMike

I'd be willing to sponsor this forum for a couple bucks a month. Or, buy my swim gear thru a link or my books and other amazon things thru a sponsored link.

loneswimmer

We haven't discussed that at all Mike. Any time I've sent out an email to the channel group for example, I've always stressed there and elsewhere such as my blog the non-commercial community aspect of the forum.

On a separate note, here's an extract of an email from Stephen Redmond to me, congratulating Grace:

"I do not swim for awards. But it's nice to be nominated and it's an honour to be among such amazing swimmers. I love Grace, she was my paddler for Catalina and she never have up on me when I was seasick and wanted to give up. She is a great girl and so bloody fast. In the water to be half as fast as her is a dream on mine, but I will keep plodding"

Steve is as always, gracious and self-deprecating.

IronMike

Sure and I understand. But I feel bad you and Evan are supporting this whole thing and I'm gaining so much from this.

evmo

Exciting news!

An anonymous and very generous donor got some plaques made for the winners of the inaugural MARATHONSWIMMERS.ORG Global Marathon Swimming Awards. Check 'em out:





To the anonymous donor: Thank you, from all of us!

IronMike

Freaking awesome!!!

evmo

A recipient of one of these awards left a message on the Activity page, visible only to Forum members:

http://www.marathonswimmers.org/forum/activity