What do you think of total immersion?

The Professional Marthon circuit started with the C N E in Canada in 1926. Ernest Vierkotter called the black shark won the Prize $50.000. In 1927 George Young was an east-end Toronto 17-year-old; his mother, a widow, worked as a cleaning woman to keep the family together. George had learned to swim at the YMCA and had begun to acquire a local reputation as a good distance swimmer. He and a friend were determined to enter the Catalina swim and, when their motorcycle broke down in Arkansas, they hitchhiked the rest of the way to California. Of the 103 swimmers who entered the water at noon, on January 15, 1927, George Young was certainly one of the most obscure; 15 hours and 45 minutes later, having battled not only the competition but sharks, oil and kelp patches, tides and bone-chilling cold, George Young waded ashore and into North American headlines. George came home to an enormous civic welcome, but at 17 the successful part of his swimming career was all but over. His longterm accomplishment was to implant marathon swimming firmly in the Toronto and Southern Ontario sports culture, so that "The Swim" became for many years the centrepiece of the sports program of the Canadian National Exhibition, attracting swimmers from all over the world and inspiring a generation of Ontario youngsters with dreams of glory. This was the historical context for one of the most unusual sporting events in Canadian history. In 1957 the Canadian National Exhibition, 30 years after the Catalina swim, promoted a Lake Ontario marathon as a showpiece for Florence Chadwick, an outstanding American distance swimmer. The scenario called for Chadwick to enter the water around midnight on the New York side of the Lake, swim all night and approach the CNE grounds by mid-afternoon, thus attracting hundreds of thousands of spectators to witness the first conquest of Lake Ontario. Instead, Chadwick had to be pulled from the water after 12 miles; by dawn, only a 16-year-old Toronto girl named Marilyn Bell, trained by Gus Ryder of the Lakeshore Swimming Club, remained in the water. Both press and radio took up the story, and caught by its intrinsic drama were both a national radio audience and many thousands of people in Toronto itself. Marilyn Bell, after 21 hours in the water, touched the Toronto shoreline to national applause. She was to go on to swim the English Channel and the straits of Juan de Fuca, but nothing in her brief career was to cap that 40-mile swim across Lake Ontario. Ernest Vierkotter was in my boat when we swam the the Cross Lake Ontario Race 33 miles in 1964. I will write about Captain Webb and the great Egyptian swimmers in the near future and the great Canadian marathon swimmers. The great Italians and dutchmen and Windmill Willie who strokes 100 strokes a minute. How the marathon cicuit started. But right now I have to get off the computer as my Grandson has just been rushed to the hospital.

The Professional Marthon circuit started with the C N E in Canada in 1926. Ernest Vierkotter called the black shark won the Prize $50.000. In 1927 George Young was an east-end Toronto 17-year-old; his mother, a widow, worked as a cleaning woman to keep the family together. George had learned to swim at the YMCA and had begun to acquire a local reputation as a good distance swimmer. He and a friend were determined to enter the Catalina swim and, when their motorcycle broke down in Arkansas, they hitchhiked the rest of the way to California. Of the 103 swimmers who entered the water at noon, on January 15, 1927, George Young was certainly one of the most obscure; 15 hours and 45 minutes later, having battled not only the competition but sharks, oil and kelp patches, tides and bone-chilling cold, George Young waded ashore and into North American headlines. George came home to an enormous civic welcome, but at 17 the successful part of his swimming career was all but over. His longterm accomplishment was to implant marathon swimming firmly in the Toronto and Southern Ontario sports culture, so that "The Swim" became for many years the centrepiece of the sports program of the Canadian National Exhibition, attracting swimmers from all over the world and inspiring a generation of Ontario youngsters with dreams of glory. This was the historical context for one of the most unusual sporting events in Canadian history. In 1957 the Canadian National Exhibition, 30 years after the Catalina swim, promoted a Lake Ontario marathon as a showpiece for Florence Chadwick, an outstanding American distance swimmer. The scenario called for Chadwick to enter the water around midnight on the New York side of the Lake, swim all night and approach the CNE grounds by mid-afternoon, thus attracting hundreds of thousands of spectators to witness the first conquest of Lake Ontario. Instead, Chadwick had to be pulled from the water after 12 miles; by dawn, only a 16-year-old Toronto girl named Marilyn Bell, trained by Gus Ryder of the Lakeshore Swimming Club, remained in the water. Both press and radio took up the story, and caught by its intrinsic drama were both a national radio audience and many thousands of people in Toronto itself. Marilyn Bell, after 21 hours in the water, touched the Toronto shoreline to national applause. She was to go on to swim the English Channel and the straits of Juan de Fuca, but nothing in her brief career was to cap that 40-mile swim across Lake Ontario. Ernest Vierkotter was in my boat when we swam the the Cross Lake Ontario Race 33 miles in 1964. I will write about Captain Webb and the great Egyptian swimmers in the near future and the great Canadian marathon swimmers. The great Italians and dutchmen and Windmill Willie who strokes 100 strokes a minute. How the marathon cicuit started. But right now I have to get off the computer as my Grandson has just been rushed to the hospital.