After 40 Days and 40 Nights, Avram Iancu Completes His Triple Crown of River Stage Swims Across Europe

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On August 8th after a start on June 29th, Avram Iancu (49, Romania, MSF bio here, @avramiancu) completed his 556 km Triple Crown of River Stage Swims after he swam 556 km along the Main River until the Danube Canal over the last 40 days. His stage swim that was documented daily on his Facebook page (see here).

This stage swim, in combination with his 2017 swim of 89 days when he swam 2,860 km in the Danube River and his 2023 swim of 48 days when he swam 1,032 km along the Rhine River, covered a total 4,448 km from the North Sea to the Black Sea through the heart of continental Europe.

He wrote, “After 40 days of swimming, we reached our final destination: the confluence of the Main-Danube Canal with the great Danube River. We managed to swim across Europe from the North Sea to the Black Sea. I became the first man to cross a continent swimming, following the famous Rhine-Main-Danube river route and achieved the World’s First Triple Crown of Rivers Stage Swims.”

In total, he swam 177 days or nearly 6 months. He summed up the three swims, “It was a half a year of continuous swimming away from my family, my wife and my little girls. After 11 years of swimming in the open waters of the world, I’m afraid to calculate the total time spent away from them. With tears in my eyes, I want to apologize to my daughters for all these absences from their childhood. But I know they understand, maybe better than anyone, the sacrifices I had to make. And why.

Beyond my athletic performance, I always carried a message I believed in: I swam for a united Europe.“