Marathon Swimming Hall Of Fame Member, David Yudovin, will be our guest of honor at the South End Rowing Club's 14th Annual Alcatraz Invitational Swim on September 12, 2009. He will also be in attendance at the pre-swim Happy Hour at the South-End Rowing Club on Friday, September 11 at 6 pm.

At the age of 7 David made the YMCA swim team in West Los Angeles. From there he began a 33-year marathon distance swimming career completing 30 major swims all over the world, including 5 of what are considered the 7 toughest swims in the world.

As a sport, marathon swimming, contains many heroic images those left standing on shore can enjoy. Consider its basic premise: a swimmer picks their time and place, trains, selects a support crew and finally, cap and goggle in hand, strides out onto the beach alone to test themselves on a large body of water. David's accomplishments have added considerably to the lore and drama of his chosen sport.

• Only a hypothermia-induced heart attack could prevent him from making a crossing from Anacapa Island to Santa Barbara in 1978. After recovery he returned 4 years later in 1982 to become the first male to make the crossing.
• In 7 of his swims he set world records for being the first person to complete a swim he conceived and successfully completed.
• He battled Leukemia and came back to become the first person to swim the Tsugara Strait in Japan.
• In the years following his cancer recovery he used three "Chances" before triumphing in an English Channel crossing in 1996.
• In 2004 he became the oldest person by more than 10 years to complete a crossing of the Cook Straits a notoriously treacherous body of water.

David's swimming has also brought rewards for others through his work for City of Hope in Duarte, CA which supports cancer research.

Athletes of David's caliber look and talk like the rest of us-but are indeed different. Consider: On a Friday in 1988 he was admitted to the UCLA emergency room suffering from a 104 degree temperature and polymyalgia - complications of Leukemia he had been diagnosed with earlier. His doctor told him that even with a relatively experimental surgery he had only a 50/50 chance of surviving until Monday. David's thoughts turned to swimming and he told his physician that he needed something that would be his "light at the end of the tunnel" something to "get him to Monday." So using this as his starting point he began making plans to become the first person to swim the Tsugara Straits a 15-25 mile typhoon ridden water alley separating the islands of Honshu and Hokkaido in Northern Japan.

Let's be clear about what we are talking about when we mention Tsugara Strait. Considered to be one of the 7 toughest swims in the world that collectively are known as the "Oceans 7". No one up to the point of David's attempt had been successful. The obstacles are seasonal typhoons and strong lateral currents that sweep swimmers westward as Sea of Japan waters flow into the Pacific. Even today almost 20 years later there have been only 4 successful crossings of this Japanese horizontal waterfall. In 1989 bad weather canceled his attempt. But in 1990 after patiently waiting months on the shores of Honshu watching typhoons continue to sweep by David completed his solo crossing in 11 h 54 m, a swim he had begun to imagine from a hospital deathbed 2 years earlier. His doctor still keeps a photo of David on his desk and tells other patients his story of hope when he is diagnosing them with the same life threatening illness David recovered from years earlier.

Perhaps the most impressive thing about David is that, spread out over a life-time, this year's guest is a man who uses a skill, talent and a fierce desire for swimming for the act of swimming itself to bring his dreams into action. Indeed in the realization of dreams execution is everything and the ability to translate what begin as ephemeral thoughts into magnificent achievements in the water is what makes him so special. We hope you have a chance to come and meet him at our event in September.

Bill Wygant
Past President
The South End Rowing Club

http://www.davidyudovinchannelswimmer.com