Oldest Triple Crown swimmer - How to determine?

evmoevmo SydneyAdmin
edited February 2019 in General Discussion
This question emerged recently over beers & burritos with @VanMou and @AquaRob: How do we determine the oldest person to do the Triple Crown of Open Water Swimming?

If Joe or Jane Q. Swimmer completes the E.C., Catalina, and Manhattan at ages X, Y, and Z...
Is his/her "Triple Crown age":
  • The maximum of {X, Y, Z} ? ("oldest to complete")
  • The minimum of {X, Y, Z} ? ("oldest to begin")
  • The average of {X, Y, Z} ? ("oldest aggregated age")
Thoughts?
Tagged:

Comments

  • WaterGirlWaterGirl Scottsdale, AZCharter Member
    I like the minimum of {X, Y, Z}. Maximum is okay too, but I don't like it as well. It seems to reward procrastination.

    I don't like using the average. You shouldn't have to whip out your calculator to find out if you've achieved a record in an adventure sport.
  • Leonard_JansenLeonard_Jansen Charter Member
    The mathematician in me wants to use the sum of the weighted difficulty of each event times the age at which the events were swum to determine this. However, common sense says that the question actually asks for age at completion and that means it's Z. If someone is going to do the English Channel and Catalina at 20 years old and then wait 70 years to do Manhattan just to get the "record", then they have other issues which swimming can't help.

    -LBJ

    “Moderation is a fatal thing. Nothing succeeds like excess.” - Oscar Wilde

  • gregocgregoc Charter Member
    The way I would look at it is the age at completion of the last of the 3 swims (maximum of {X, Y, Z}). We are talking about the oldest person to complete the Triple Crown.
    phodgeszohoBridget
  • nvr2latenvr2late Central VirginiaCharter Member
    I agree with gregoc - the age at the completion of the 3 swims.
    Bridget
  • bobswimsbobswims Santa Barbara CACharter Member
    My vote is for calculating it in the way that works best for me in my particular situation.
    phodgeszohodpm50FlowSwimmers
  • mrfinbarrmrfinbarr Charter Member
    What about if the sum of the ages at which the swims were completed similat to age groupings for masters relay teams?

    Otherwise it'd have to be the age at which all three were completed
    dpm50
  • david_barradavid_barra NYCharter Member
    gregoc wrote:
    The way I would look at it is the age at completion of the last of the 3 swims (maximum of {X, Y, Z}). We are talking about the oldest person to complete the Triple Crown.

    .... but only if the EC is the last of the 3; otherwise, CC - 5years; MIMS - 10 years.

    unless all 3 completed in 1 season; + 20 yrs (at least!)

    ...anything worth doing is worth overdoing.

  • IronMikeIronMike Northern VirginiaCharter Member
    I'm with @mrfinbarr. Sum of ages.

    We're all just carbon, water, starlight, oxygen and dreams

  • The age at which they were when they completed it. I guess I don't understand the question?
  • evmoevmo SydneyAdmin
    edited February 2019
    suziedods wrote: »
    The age at which they were when they completed it. I guess I don't understand the question?

    The point of the question is that there are different ways of measuring the achievement, each interesting in its own way.

    Imagine Person A, who completed the three swims at ages 56, 57, and 58.
    Now imagine Person B, who completed the three swims at ages 25, 26, and 59.

    By @suziedods' preferred method of measuring Triple Crown "age," Person B is "older."

    But someone else might reasonably say that Person A was older, given that the average (or median, or minimum) age was much higher.

    Just some food for thought.
  • Aggregate age seems logical to me.
  • JustSwimJustSwim Senior Member
    I agree with what has been said before the oldest person to achieve the Triple Crown would be based on the age of completion of their last of the three swims.

    That said it average age, or aggregate age would be an interesting stat to track. Either of these two ways of measurement would yield the same rankings since the average age is the aggregate age divided by 3. Average age might be more understandable than aggrevate age.
  • malinakamalinaka Seattle, WACharter Member
    If the Youngest Person to complete the 3C is judged by the age at completion, would not it follow that the Oldest Person be judged by the age at start?

    I don't wear a wetsuit; it gives the ocean a sporting chance.

  • motivate99motivate99 Member
    edited February 2015
    http://dailynews.openwaterswimming.com/2015/01/triple-crown-of-open-water-swimming.html?m=1

    Seems to be listed in order of age at completion of all three swims, which makes me 5th oldest...if you list by aggregate age, I'm the third oldest - so I guess I prefer by age at the last swim, 'cause I feel young, again!
  • IronMikeIronMike Northern VirginiaCharter Member
    malinaka wrote: »
    If the Youngest Person to complete the 3C is judged by the age at completion, would not it follow that the Oldest Person be judged by the age at start?

    So if person A swam the three at 28, 30, and 73, s/he would be considered to have completed the three at age 28?

    We're all just carbon, water, starlight, oxygen and dreams

  • gregocgregoc Charter Member
    I think I will wait at least another 40 years before attempting the EC.
    evmodpm50
  • emkhowleyemkhowley Boston, MACharter Member
    edited February 2015
    Why not take the age in days of the person at the time of each crossing and add them all together? So for example's sake, (and I'm taking the easy way out here by using the birthdate as the example) let's assume the swimmer in question did the English Channel on his 28th birthday (10,220 days old), Catalina on his 50th birthday (18,250 days old) and MIMS on his 52nd birthday (18,980 days old). You'd end up with a grand total of 47,450 days. Now, if swimmer 2 also did the EC on his 28th birthday and Catalina on his 50th, but MIMS three days AFTER his 52nd birthday, then you'd get 47,453, and swimmer 2 would be the older of the two.

    Stop me if you've heard this one...
    A grasshopper walks into a bar...
    https://elainekhowley.com/

  • malinakamalinaka Seattle, WACharter Member
    @ironmike merely trying to suggest Oldest and Youngest metrics be analogous. It would seem inconsistent to rate one by a single age, and the other by anything other than a single age.

    But so what if it was done by your example. Complete swim 1 and 2 again, and the age jumps to 73.

    On the other side, Youngest may not be a record to be pursued too hard: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquatots.
    IronMike

    I don't wear a wetsuit; it gives the ocean a sporting chance.

  • gregocgregoc Charter Member
    emkhowley wrote: »
    Why not take the age in days of the person at the time of each crossing and add them all together? So for example's sake, (and I'm taking the easy way out here by using the birthdate as the example) let's assume the swimmer in question did the English Channel on his 28th birthday (10,220 days old), Catalina on his 50th birthday (18,250 days old) and MIMS on his 52nd birthday (18,980 days old). You'd end up with a grand total of 47,450 days. Now, if swimmer 2 also did the EC on his 28th birthday and Catalina on his 50th, but MIMS three days AFTER his 52nd birthday, then you'd get 47,453, and swimmer 2 would be the older of the two.

    @emkhowley, are you accounting for Leap Years?
    dpm50
  • JBirrrdJBirrrd MarylandSenior Member
    I say aggregate age (down to the day), divided by 3, makes sense. Decide quickly. We have someone here in Maryland set to claim this title.
    Franco
  • evmoevmo SydneyAdmin
    edited February 2019

    Just for fun, here's the current ranking of "oldest Triple Crown swimmer," according to each of the three methods suggested in this thread:

    Method 1: Oldest to Complete

    Maximum of {ageX, ageY, ageZ}

    Swimmer Date Completed Age @ Completion
    Pat Gallant-Charette 2018-06-30 67
    Mo Siegel 2016-09-11 65
    Trevor Colman 2018-09-08 64
    Paula Yankauskas 2018-09-05 64
    Jim Clifford 2015-09-07 63

    Method 2: Oldest Aggregate Age

    Average of {ageX, ageY, ageZ}

    Swimmer Age
    Pat Gallant-Charette 64.8
    Jim Clifford 63.2
    Paula Yankauskas 63.0
    Mo Siegel 61.6
    James Penrose 61.0

    Method 3: Oldest on completion of 1st leg

    Minimum of {ageX, ageY, ageZ} (@malinaka's favored method)

    Swimmer Age
    Jim Clifford 62
    Paula Yankauskas 62
    Pat Gallant-Charette 60
    James Penrose 60
    Mo Siegel 59

    Personally I still favor method 2 or 3 over the traditional "oldest to complete," due to the hypothetical edge case of someone doing the EC and Catalina in their 20s, and then Manhattan (typically easier) later in life.

    Essentially, "oldest to complete" identifies the person who was oldest on any single one of the three swims, even if they were much younger on the other two.

    I do find it rather interesting that Pat G-C is now recognized by Guinness World Records as the oldest, but Jim Clifford could also reasonably claim this record according to method 3.

    (Not to imply that I think Guinness records have any significance whatsoever.)

    slknightdavid_barrarlm
  • gregocgregoc Charter Member

    I agree with method #2. What really impressed me is the fact that 4 of these swimmers didn’t even complete the first leg until they were in their 60s!

    evmoJSwimBridget
  • To me the oldest to complete the Triple Crown or method #1 makes the most sense. I did Manhattan when I was 32 in 1985, EC two years later and Catalina thirty years later in 2015 when I was 62. For me, still being in the sport 30 years later is important to me although it may not mean anything to anyone else. When people ask me how old I was when I completed the Triple Crown, which incidentally is a recent designation, I say 62, not some average or whatever. When Roger Federer wins his next major will the sports world say he won it at the age of 37 or 38 or will they say that the average age over his 21 major wins is xx?

    BogdanZSolo
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