After 52 hours swimming around the islands of Malta, Gozo, and Comino in the Mediterranean Sea, 2004 Olympic swimmer Neil Agius (@neil.agius) has swum 125.7 km towards his goal of 160 km.
With a little more than 44 km to go, albeit in rough water and rain, it appears that 39-year-old may beat his estimated time of 70 hours to complete his swim.
In 2014, Chloë McCardel swam 124 km from Eleuratha to Nassau in the Bahamas in 41 hours 21 minutes, another very long Marathon Swimmers Federation– approved unassisted solo marathon swim.
In June 2021, Agius completed a 125.7 km swim from Linosa, Italy to Xlendi Bay, Gozo in 52 hours 7 minutes. His support team included Sam Attard, Andrew Zammit, Simon Zammit, David Brookes, Kurt Arrigo, David Anastasi, Maja Podesta, Christa Calleja, Greg Nasmyth, Jonathan Glynn Smith, John Winfield, Lara Vella, Stephen Merceica, Andrew Schrembri, Alex Vella, Benjamin Tabone Grech, Mark Buttigieg, Twain Cutajar, Gordon Bugeja, Marc Casolani, and Ranjit Singh Mudhar.
His support team this time is providing even more real-time data, photos, videos, and social media posts during his swim to raise awareness about the state of Malta’s marine habitat and its critical environmental issues to inspire a collective commitment to protecting the Mediterranean Sea.
But it is not easy…
To be continued.
Follow his tracker here.
UPDATE: The Marathon Swimmers Federation reported that Agius established a new world record for the Longest Ocean Swim (nonstop, unassisted, current neutral) [in] 142.3 km in 60 hours 30 minutes.
“Neil started from Mellieha Bay, Malta, completed a full circumnavigation of both Malta and Gozo, followed by another near-half circumnavigation of Malta and finishing at Ghar Lapsi.”
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