Lynne Cox-one of the 20th Century's most important sports figures-will attend our 14th Annual Alcatraz Invitational to introduce David Yudovin our Guest of Honor at the awards ceremony on the day of the swim. She will also be in attendance at the pre-swim Happy Hour at the South-End Rowing Club on Friday, September 11 at 6 pm.

Lynne Cox is one of the most remarkable athletes in any sport. When you look at her, think of people like Edmund Hillary, Roger Bannister, or Bobby Jones; people whose accomplishments caused them to become iconic images for us when we think of their sport. She along with her coach Don Gambril ushered in a new age in marathon swimming by employing ocean interval training in preparation for her two world-record swims across the English Channel. These twin arcs of triumph across the forbidding Atlantic, changed marathon swimming in such a fundamental way, that when we imagine what an open water swimmer is that image was actually put into our collective unconscious by a 15 year old girl named Lynne Cox crossing the English Channel.

Several years later, still in high school, she became the first woman to swim the 20-mile Cook Strait between the North and South Islands of New Zealand, regarded as one of the most treacherous and dangerous bodies of water in the world. Caught in a massive swell, she found herself farther away from the finish at the halfway point in the swim than she had been when she had started. Ready to quit, Lynne ultimately swam through the night after learning that ten of thousands New Zealanders had heard about her swim on the radio and hundreds were waiting for her at Wellington Beach to finish. From almost that exact moment in the middle of the Cook Strait, Lynne's career began to expand in another direction and in reality began to come to us almost as something from the classical Greeks. A Greek Hero ventures into the unknown to bring back goods and rewards for others beside themselves. Lynne swam on through the night not for herself but for those that waited for her on the beach-and she won. This selfless heroic characteristic seen here in her Cook Strait swim was later replicated in her swim across the Bering Strait a body of water that forms the boundary between the United States and Russia. The cooperation required from the two countries in preparation for this swim began a period of thawing in the relations between the two superpowers and is credited for beginning the process that resulted in the end of the cold war and ushering in an era of "Glasnost and Perestroika" that Regan and Gorbachev later toasted in the White House together.

If she had done nothing from that point on, Lynne would still be considered a remarkable athlete with a rich connection to the history of her chosen sport. However she went on to teach us that open-water swimming can indeed be raised almost to an art form, as she helped to define it. If you were watching very closely you saw that this young woman showed us through training, perseverance, planning, imagination and strength of character, a person can for a brief period of time impose their will on a large aquatic stage. In this context her swims across the Strait of Magellan, Lake Baikal, the Mediterranean, the Strait of Messina, the Cape of Good Hope, many of them first crossing of a body of water by any swimmer actually became ephemeral line drawings across large liquid landscapes that could make Picasso blush with envy.

Lynne's career shows us a view of a marathon swimmer that seems normal today, but was unique and special when she began her career. With her reputation from her Bering Strait swim as the world's best cold-water long distance swimmer she eventually extended swimming into a metaphor for the tenacity of life itself with her swim from an aging Russian Ice-Breaker anchored a mile off a shore in the Antarctic. Here at the bottom of the world delicately balanced on a rusting ships railing she paused. Three doctors waited in the water below ready to resuscitate her in case her heart seized when she hit the 32-degree water. The question was would she jump... to those who know Lynne it was no surprise that when the time came she went over the side risking even life itself and swam because like she has in the rest of her career she would show us here again that we as humans are all capable of just a little more than we thought we were. An idea she was committed to even if it means risking death to show it. Her swim in the Antarctic, widely covered by television, was a wonderful capstone to an already remarkable career and in context of the rest of her accomplishments completed a high arcing metaphor for how to live life to the fullest. We hope you will take advantage of the opportunity to come meet the world's most extraordinary marathon swimmer at our event in September.

Bill Wygant
Past President
The South End Rowing Club




(Photo of Lynne Cox by Ann Chatillon)