International Marathon Swimming Hall of Fame… latest inductees!!!

At the 2005 World Swimming Championships, she won the 5K. At the 2006 World Open Water Swimming Championships, she won the 5K and 10K, with her trademark closing sprint. By 2007 and 2008, she dominated the last part of every race she swam. Her career culminated at the 2008 Beijing Olympics 10K when she won gold in her trademark fashion.

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Maarten van der Weijdenfrom Alkmaar, Netherlands was the gold medalist in the Olympic 10K Marathon Swim at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.  Maarten is the only leukemia cancer survivor to win an Olympic gold medal and was the Dutch national champion in the pool and open water before cancer struck.In 2001, he was confronted with leukemia and his career was considered over. He fought back against cancer and made a comeback in 2003 winning three Dutch national titles. In 2004, he swam across the IJsselmeer in 4 hours 20 minutes, setting the record by almost 15 minutes and collecting €50,000 that he donated for cancer research.

He finished fifth in the 2005 World Swimming Championships in the 10K and sixth in the 25K in Canada. He also won three FINA World Cup competitions and continued to gradually move up the ranking. He won the 25K at the 2008 World Open Water Swimming Championships in Sevilla, Spain. He also won a bronze medal at the 5K and was fourth in the 10K.

At the Olympic 10K Marathon Swim despite being far back in the pack throughout the race and barely in the top 10 around the last turn buoy, he won in dramatic fashion, narrowly edging out favorites David Davies of Great Britain and Thomas Lurz of Germany down the final straightaway.

He unexpectedly announced the end of his professional swimming career during his dramatic acceptance speech as 2008 Dutch Sportsman of the Year award ceremonies.

He continues to speak eloquently around the world as a motivational speaker and is a spokesperson for Unilever and blueseventy. He has also written a popular autobiography about his journey.

 

Sri Chinmoy was an Indian teacher, poet, artist and athlete who inspired many in  endurance sports. His Sri Chinmoy Marathon Team  organises many events worldwide including the 26.4K International Self-Transcendence Marathon-Schwimmen.Members of the Sri Chinmoy Marathon Team, who have received many awards, honors and recognitions, have swum the English Channel at least 38 times. His followers continue to organise the prestigious and highly popular International Self-Transcendence Marathon-Schwimmen that draws an international crowd and is sold-out year after year.

He founded the Sri Chinmoy Centre and wrote 1,500 books, 115,000 poems and 20,000 songs, created 200,000 paintings and gave almost 800 free peace concerts around the world where he advocated meditation, chanting mantras and prayers, performing dedicated service to God as a way to personal enlightenment.

Inspired by Sri Aurobindo (1872–1950), Chinmoy was encouraged to pursue his athletic abilities.

He was a decathlon champion at the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, marathons, ultra-marathons, cycling, as well as captain of the soccer and volleyball teams. During his years at the ashram he spent many hours daily in deep meditation. He competed in endurance events up into his 60’s where his knee injury forced him to switch to low impact sports including tennis and weightlifting. Chinmoy has many followers who are inspired by him to run daily for health and physical fitness. He advocated self-transcendence by expanding one’s consciousness to conquer the mind’s perceived limitations. In the spirit of self transcendence, his students have completed extraordinary feats of endurance.

 

Ned Denisonhas motivated, educated, organized and assisted thousands of athletes.From California (USA) to Cork (Ireland), he has passionately served others with compassion, experience and a relentless drive.

He is a mountain of a man who not only a high-achieving marathon swimmer in his own right, but a gem of the open water world who is also giving a great deal back to the sport by helping others achieve their dreams.

He has helped and energized many open water swimmers under the auspices of the Sandycove Island Swim Club and the force of his engaging personality.

He started the Blackrock to Cobh swim (now known as the 16K Cork to Cobh swim) and founded the Cork Ireland – Long Distance Swim Camp and the Irish Champion of Champions Swim that had 50 participants in 2009 and he and his wife Anne (Alcatraz 2006) have hosted five annual Channel dinners. He knows the sport as an athlete for he has completed multiple channel swims in Ireland, South Africa and California.
Denison was chairperson of Ireland’s first National Open Water Committee where he created the first national list of open water swims and assembled a mailing list to over 3,000 swimmers in Ireland to promote open water swimming. In 2006, he organized 94 Irish swimmers to travel to the Alcatraz Swim in San Francisco which remains the largest group of Irish swimmers to compete in an international competition. He is a founding member of the Santa Barbara Channel Swimming Association in California and the Kingdom Swim in Vermont, USA, and is on the committee for the Manhattan Island Marathon Swim.

 

David Parcellswas an American marathon swimmer who passed away in 2007 while competing in the Tampa Bay Marathon Swim in Florida.He completed the 1989 Ironman Triathlon in Hawaii and was the first non-professional swimmer to complete the Long Island Swim crossing and is the current record holder as the oldest person to complete a double-crossing of the English Channel. Parcells became the marathon swim director of the St. Vincent’s Medical Center Swim Across the Sound, which has raised over $2 million for cancer.

 

The race, also known as the Croatian International Long Distance Swimming Championship, has developed into a world- class event.The professional race is 16 kilometers in the sea of Stari Grad Bay on Hvar Island and takes place in the month of August. 1,089 athletes from 42 countries have taken part in this international celebration.  It was previously known as the Yugoslav International Long Distance Swimming Championship where it continued to host their event even despite war conditions.water swimming globally since 1967. 

 

Marcos Díazof the Dominican Republic completed the Swim Across The Continents, a series of marathon swims endorsed by the United Nations, and celebrated International Coastal Cleanup Day with a 22K solo swim along the north shore of the Dominican Republic. He is one of the United Nations Development Program Goodwill Ambassadors.Marcos has also done the 81K Bhagirathi River swim in India, won the International Crossing of the Toroneos Gulf in Greece 3 times, and competed in swims in Hong Kong, Dominican Republic, Croatia, Greece, Florida, Australia and Argentina where he did 3 pro races: Hernandarias-Parana in 88 kilometers in 9 hours 42 minutes in Argentina, Rosario Marathon in 9 kilometers in 1 hour 31 minutes in Argentina, and Santa Fe-Coronda, 57 kilometers in 8 hours 5 minutes in Argentina.

 

Drury Gallagher is the Irving Davids – Captain Roger Wheeler Memorial Award.Due to his hard-work in the 1980’s and early 1990’s, he restarted the Manhattan Island Marathon Swim and helped New York City become a dynamic hotbed of marathon swimming, world renowned for its Manhattan Island Marathon Swim, one of the world’s iconic marathon events. As a swimmer, Drury set 27 FINA Masters world records and later founded the Manhattan Island Swimming Association that will be his legacy as a memorial to his son, Drury, Jr. who died in a tragic accident.

He is inducted in the International Masters Swimming Hall of Fame and the International Marathon Swimming Hall of Fame as an Honor Administrator.

Since the first crossing in 1927, there have been 199 successful solo swimmers and 70 successful relays.