Courtesy of Pádraig Mallon, Infinity Channel Swimming and Piloting Services.
While the Triple Crown of Open Water Swimming is a current goal for many contemporary swimmers, swims across the English Channel and Catalina Channel and around Manhattan Island in New York was a new spin on an old goal.
The Original Triple Crown is defined as a successful completion of solo unassisted crossings of the English Channel, North Channel and Bristol Channel in the United Kingdom during one’s career.
Lynton Mortensen attempted to become the third person in history to become an Original Triple Crowner after Kevin Murphy and Ted Keenan.
According to the Infinity Channel Swimming and Piloting Services, Murphy achieved the Original Triple Crown with this 1968 crossing of the English Channel (15 hours 55 minutes), 1973 crossing of the North Channel (13 hours 54 minutes), and 1973 crossing of the Bristol Channel (13 hours 54 minutes). Keenan did it with his 1972 crossing of the English Channel (18 hours 11 minutes), 1973 crossing of the North Channel (18 hours 27 minutes), and 1975 crossing of the Bristol Channel (14 hours 26 minutes).
After a highly active 2017 season that ranged from the 19.7 Rottnest Channel Swim (8 hours 28 minutes) and 25 km Port to Pub Swim (9 hours 46 minutes) in Australia to the English Channel (12 hours 35 minutes), North Channel (13 hours 49 minutes), 45.8 km 20 Bridges Manhattan Island Swim (7 hours 18 minutes) in New York, Catalina Channel (13 hours 59 minutes), the 53-year-old HBM Lawyers Managing Partner attempted to join these two legends in the channel swimming community with the third historic Original Triple Crown.
While he successfully made the first two legs of the Original Triple Crown this summer (English Channel and North Channel), Mother Nature finally slowed Mortensen down in the Bristol Channel. Jacqueline McClelland reported that his crossing attempt was called yesterday for safety reasons as the winds picked up.
Mortensen is raising money for the Children’s Hospital Foundation on his channel crossings in order to help hospitalized children in need and their families. Funds support lifesaving childhood cancer research and purchase of vital new lifesaving equipment for the children.
For more information on Mortensen’s charity swims, visit his Everyday Hero campaign here.
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