From Péribonka To Roberval, Once Again Vanesa Garcia

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Since 2009, Vanesa Garcia has traveled from her native town of Santa Fe in Argentina to lac St-Jean in Roberval, Québec, Canada. Her travel is 8,978 km in a straight line, but getting to lac St-Jean to compete in the annual 32 km Traversée internationale du lac St-Jean requires all kinds of modes of transportation along the way.

Garcia has competed in the 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2022, and 2023 editions, and would have repeated in the 2020 and 2021 races, but they were canceled due to the pandemic.

The 70th edition (@traverseelacstjean) begins this week in Roberval (see here), a week-long celebration of marathon swimming in its Canadian epicenter between July 20th and 28th.

Prize money of C$55,000 is offered to the swimmers in the 32 km Rio Tinto who include the following athletes:

Aquiles Balaudo, Argentina
Franco Ivo Cassini, Argentina
Matias Diaz Hernandez, Argentina
Rita Vanesa Garcia, Argentina
Mayte Puca, Argentina
Erika Yenssen, Argentina
Madisyn Armstrong, Australia
Andrea de la Hera Martin, Spain
Sandra Frimerman-Bergquist, USA
Inès Delacroix, France
Clémence François, France
Axel Reymond, France
Matteo Furlan, Italy
Marco Inglima, Italy
Elena Lionello, Italy
Alessio Occhipinti, Italy
Mario Sanzullo, Italy
Aleksandar Ilievski, Macedonia
Evgenij Pop Acev, Macedonia
Daniel Delgadillo, Mexico
Hugo Ribeiro, Portugal
Pénélope Harvey, Canada
Philippe Lacasse, Canada
Marie-Laurence Lortie, Canada
William Racine, Canada

The amateurs compete in the 1 km, 2 km, 5 km Uniprix races, the 10 km Marathon de la relève Rio Tinto (with C$6,500 available prize money), and the 25m, 50m, 100m, 500m, and 1 km Défi Plouf races for children between the ages of 5 and 12.

For more information about Garcia’s career, sponsored by @mateína, visit Marathon Swimmers Federation bio here.