A Video Is Worth A Thousand Words

Colin Hill of Nova International, driver behind the Great North Swim, the Great London Swim, the Great Scottish Swim and the Great East Swim, continues to promote open water swimming in a variety of ways.

He promotes wild swimming with Kate Rew in the Lake District of England, where William Wordsworth lived, in this video.

Click here to view.

Background of the Great Channel Swim Cancellation

Michael Oram of the Channel Swimming & Piloting Federation provided his unique and first-hand insight on the reasons why the Great Channel Swim was recently cancelled in reply to questions on an English Channel swimmers chat site.


Michael has been working diligently with Colin Hill of Nova International since November 2008 to organize the Great Channel Swim.

Michael and Colin have attended numerous meetings, written comprehensive risk assessments based on Michael’s experience of personally piloting over 500 English Channel attempts over 27 years, and spent countless hours consulting with the Coastguard authorities, various County and local Councils, police groups, the Dover Harbour Board and local officials to organize the Great Channel Swim.


Groundwork and the planning with the authorities started in November 2008 and, based on a consensus developed by the end of January 2009, the Great Channel Swim was announced officially by Nova International at the beginning of February 2009.

However as the media interest started to build up momentum and additional groups were briefed on the event, the issue of having unknown numbers of spectators in leisure vessels in the English Channel was brought to the attention of the French authorities. Faced with the possibility of safety issues related to hundreds of spectators in a wide variety of boats watching the athletes – going at a relatively slow 2 knots per hour across heavily trafficked international shipping lines – the French authorities reassessed the situation and informed Nova of their new concerns at the logistics meeting on the March 31st.

Largely because of the unknown element of these spectators' effects on safety, the French cooperation and consent was then formally withdrawn on the April 29th.

Throughout April, Michael and Nova tried gallantly to salvage the situation, presenting various alternatives. Because no one could accurately predict how many spectator boats would be on the water on race day, or how they could be controlled, it was impossible to come to an agreement with the French authorities because there was no way to verify the parameters involved.

With a May 1st deadline looming, the athletes were alerted to the situation and negotiations continued.

Unfortunately, by May 1st, the concerns had still not been resolved and, as a result, the French authorities did not change their assessment.

As Michael explained, "It would have been a great event if it had come to fruition. It might well happen in the future now that the parameters are set, but it will take time and effort to negotiate."

Like marathon swimmers throughout the world, we understand the risks involved, know many obstacles stand in the way of success and greatly appreciate the support we receive from those who organize and govern the sport.

We wish Michael and Colin the best of success in the future.

Elite Swimmers in the Channel

Nova International announced its elite competitors for the Great Channel Swim in August.

Petar Stoychev, the current English Channel record holder in 6:57 and Bulgaria's Olympic flag-bearer in Beijing, Australian Brendan Capell (shown on left), 2004 world 25K champion and second overall on the 2008 FINA Open Water Swimming Grand Prix circuit, Cassandra Patten, Britain's 2008 Olympic 10K Marathon Swim bronze medalist, Australian Shelley Clark, a consistently high finisher on the FINA Open Water Swimming Grand Prix circuit events and at the World 25K Open Water Championships, Stefanie Biller (shown on left), a 6-time German national champion and second overall in the 2008 FINA Open Water Swimming Grand Prix circuit. Others will be formally announced later.



Unlike most of English Channel aspirants who simply want to make it across the Channel, these athletes are going to be racing, have raced each other for years and will start together from the same point. All of them are used to swimming in a pack and sprinting for the finish like they all do on the FINA Marathon Swimming World Cup and the FINA Open Water Swimming Grand Prix circuit events. It will be interesting to see their strategies after the start.

Will they swim together in pack? If so, for how long? Will one of them break off and take a different course than the others? Will the women go with the men? Will the escort boat pilots cooperative and share information or strategies with one another - or will they be competitive with one another? If they break off early in the race, they will greatly depend on the experience of their escort boat pilots? How will the race be filmed and reported - by cameras on helicopters and GPS? It will be something to see.

As Shelley once said, "One thing that I love is that open water swimming is very dynamic. No two races are ever going to be the same. Every race, no matter where it is, because of changing conditions and different locations, will be a challenge- whether I’m swimming two kilometers or sixty kilometers."

Well said.

Copyright © 2009 by Open Water Source

Great Announcement for the Great Channel Swim

Nova International will formally announce the elite competitors in the Great Channel Swim at the Royal Lancaster Hotel in London at 11 am on Thursday, February 4th.




The conference will be hosted by Jonathan Martin, the former Head of Sport of BBC TV, Kevin Murphy, the King of the Channel (shown to the left), Brendan Foster, Chairman of Nova International, MC Stuart Storey and Cassandra Patten, Olympic 10K Marathon Swim bronze medalist who will be participating by telephone from South Africa.

British Swimming is endorsing this event.

Photo of Kevin Murphy from the Mark Robson blog.