Robin Lajoie is a 69-year-old triathlete-turned-marathon butterflyer from Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.
On August 16th 2024, he started swimming butterfly at Burlington Beach on Lake Ontario in Burlington, Ontario, Canada at 6:42 am. He didn’t stop until he ended up swimming 37 laps of 440 meters each for a total of 16.28 km. Hydro poles that stood 220 meters apart were used to mark the start and end of each lap.
The butterfly marathon took him 10 hours 48 minutes to complete at 5:30 pm at the age of 69.
He broke his another distance butterfly record for his age – his own record.
He previously finished a 14 km solo butterfly marathon swim in Hamilton, Ontario on September 5th in 6 hours 10 minutes, breaking the existing standard set by Dan Projansky who completed a 12.5 km butterfly at the age of 57.
In August 2023, Lajoie completed a 13.8 km butterfly marathon on the Welland Recreational Canal at the Canaqua Sports’ Midsummer Classic. He broke his previous distance butterfly record from 2022 when he set a 10 km butterly record in 4 hours 56 minutes.
I greatly respect an older man who can swim incredibly far doing non-stop butterfly, devises his own challenges, sets his goals, and just gets in and does his own thing on his own time. Beautiful.
© 2024 Daily News of Open Water Swimming
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I was one of the independent observers who witnessed this feat. Robin is a man with a will of steel who puts the Energizer bunny to shame. He just keeps swimming and swimming and swimming and … . The drive and determination that this man possesses is like none I have seen in anyone else.
Robin