Swimming the length of Lake Whakatipu
A distance of 82km – the length of Lake Whakatipu – is what local marathon swimmer Liana Smith will attempt to swim this month. Without a wetsuit and unassisted, no less. It’s the first time someone’s attempted this swim in such a way.
In the past, only one swimmer from Wellington has been successful in going the distance, but he did have a wetsuit on, “and no one has attempted it since 2012, so why not?!” Smith says. In addition to attempting this intense feat, Smith will also be raising funds for I Am Hope.
Originally from a small rural town called Glenbrook in the North Island, Smith moved to Queenstown in 2015. Having always enjoyed swimming, she never intended to get into it as a sport – flash forward to now as she has a world record under her belt for swimming the Foveaux Strait in six hours and 19 minutes. Smith’s also completed the Cook Strait and Lake Taūpo.
“I got into it accidentally – needing to get my Surf Life Saving swim time better. I was really big into surfing back home and needed to train up a bit, so started doing that with my local club. I was about eight at the time,” Smith says.
At the time she had to wear a wetsuit in the warm rural pool, not something she enjoyed. Soon, she fell in love with swimming and represented New Zealand on a couple of national youth teams. After winning a few national titles and picking up a NZ record in the 100 metre individual medley, she was struck with injury.
“I swum my way to a spinal fusion at age 17. It shot my career in the face a little bit, which was a bit of a shame. I had a bit of a mix of misdiagnoses, over training and genetics as well.”
Following this she had seven years completely out of the water and it wasn’t until Covid that she decided to give it another crack.
“I thought I’d see if I could still swim, and it turns out I could, and decided I’d tick off what’s called the triple crown, which is Lake Taupo, Cook Strait and Foveaux. That was my big mission over 2021 and 2022.”
Swimming Lake Whakatipu is the next challenge she’s set her sights on. Her training regime has been strict in the lead up, doing 50km swim weeks and mixing in strength and conditioning work. A marathon swim is 10km, so she’ll be doing the equivalent of eight running marathons back to back.
“While I’m away swimming, people can follow the Facebook or Instagram pages and they can see the live tracker and link for the charity. If you want to donate $1 per km, or something like that you can – just trying to do a little bit of good in the world essentially.”
You can follow Liana’s attempt and see the announcement of the date by finding Swim for Something on Facebook or Instagram.
