Lindsey wins ‘Gold’ at centenary swim

Masters swimmer Lindsey Shenton, a member of Isle of Wight Marlins Swim Club, won a Gold medal at the Hellespont swim in Turkey last week, swimming between two continents.

Lindsey is a regular Open Water sea swimmer who entered the International swim from Europe to Asia, across the Bospherous Sea, which is situated between the Black Sea and the Aegean Sea. The 4.7km swim race was in recognition of the same crossing made by Lord Byron back in 1910.

Over 200 Turkish swimmers entered the race with another 210 swimmers from countries throughout Europe, the USA, Australia and New Zealand. In all there were 460 entries. The swimming conditions were extreme! The non- Turkish swimmers were advised not to swim, due to such ‘extreme conditions’ by ‘SwimTrek’ – the provider for non-Turkish swimmers. Despite the very warm sea and very favourable currents, the very strong winds meant that the sea conditions were ‘potentially very challenging’. Out of 460 entries, only 210 swimmers completed the course in the given time.

Lindsey was the first British female swimmer to finish, despite many others being many years younger. Her time for the swim was 51 minutes 29 seconds, which meant that she not only won the 51-55yr age category for all entries, but also came 6th overall. Out of all the female swimmers ranging from 14 years to 79 years, only 64 managed to finish the race in under the time limit of 90 minutes.

This was Lindsey’s first International Open Water competition and therefore her first Gold Medal for such an event. She went to Turkey just to take part, in the hope that she could complete the swim in the time limit of 90 minutes – so was surprised and delighted that she did so well! Two years ago she organised and completed a Round the Isle of Wight relay swim with other master swimmers successfully in 15 hours and 41 mins – just missing the record by 11 minutes.
Lindsey, together with other Open Water swimmers: Jenny Ball and Jane Dodd, regularly competes in events including other SwimTrek events such as : swimming from Gozo to Malta! What will be next? She hopes to plan a relay (3 swimmers), swimming the length of Lake Zurich in Switzerland. Alternatively it could be the swim from Alcatraz or an event in Australia!