LGSA’s Recap of the year 2021 — Lake Geneva Swimming Association

The year 2021 was not what we expected it to be. As the association that organizes open water swimming events in Lake Geneva, you expect to, you know, organize events. But things didn’t go as planned. So, we had to focus on other things. If you have missed what we have been up to this year, this blog will get you up to speed.

The year of events that didn’t take place

We started the year with the hope of organizing all our events: the Classique, the Escape Léman and the Signature Swim. But a few months into the year, we had to make a difficult choice.

As the COVID situation developed, it became clear that it would no longer be possible to organize events responsibly.

We didn’t want any of the swimmers that signed up for our events to run to the risk of getting sick. The other thing was that travel restrictions made it very difficult for swimmers all over the world to make their way to Lake Geneva.

With that decision made, we switched our sights to next year, with the same hope that our events will take place in 2022. For next year we have the following events lined up:

The Signature Swim (various dates)
The Classique (16th of July 2022)
The Escape Léman (17th of July 2022)

That’s not all. We also have been working on a new swim event for you. We can not reveal the details yet, but we can already say that it’s a historic swim in the region that we hope to revive in the upcoming year.

As the Classique is filling up quite fast, soon we will have to open a waiting list, we hope that the new event will accommodate the swimmers that might be able to take part in the Classique.

Stay tuned for more information on our open water swim events of 2022.

The Signature Swim

The event we did get to organize in 2021 was the Signature Swim. The Signature, also known as 'The Ultimate Trophy Swim', traverses the length of Lake Geneva from Chillon Castle in Veytaux to Bains des Pâquis in Geneva. At approximately 70km it is twice as long as the English Channel.

We had some amazing participating swimmers this year. Like John Royden. John wanted to generate attention with his Signature Swim for a good cause: to raise money for the Brain Tumor Charity. About 17 years ago, his sister Emma died of brain cancer and even though there is a lot of cancer research, brain tumours are hardly researched. Read the full story on John Royden here.

We also had to add a new name to the list of legends that have completed the Signature Swim: Jennifer Dutton. Jennifer Dutton is a 51-year-old American open water swimmer and swimming coach from Wayland, Massachusetts. She was inducted into the Class of 2019 in the Vermont Open Water Swimming Hall of Fame. Between 10 and 11 August 2021 she swam from Chillon Castle to Bains des Pâquis in a time of 33 hours, 23 minutes and 15 seconds.

The first English webinar and return of the Swimmer blogs

On Thursday 23 September 2021 we hosted our first-ever webinar in English. Since December 2020 we have been hosting a monthly webinar in French, which discuss all kinds of aspects of open water swimming. Last September finally arrived the moment for our first English webinar.

Our first guest was Jaimie Monahan who talked about her big swims and how you can prepare for your next big swim. You can find her best tips in this blog. Our second guest was Ian Lazarenco, who told us the incredible story about how he started by learning swimming from watching YouTube videos and how became the 8th person to complete the Oceans 7 challenge.

To support our webinars and to create another channel to share all the information you need to succeed in open water swimming, we have revived our blog section. Since last September, we have been updating our blogs with new information and new blogs that can help you become a better open water swimmer. And we don’t do it alone.

In the last few months, we have received various questions that we tried to answer in the blog. We had an open water swimmer asks us about how to recognize a dangerous body of water. And we also have had a lot of questions about swimming in the winter season, which has led to a blog with tips on how to extend your swim season into the winter. You can find all the swimmer blogs in our blog section.

New committee members

We are always looking for ways to improve our open water swimming events. And we were so proud to be able to announce two amazing new additions to our committee team. Alain Charmey, the first person to swim what nowadays we call the Signature Swim, and his coach for the swim Anthony Ulrich.

The relationship between Alain Charmey and Lake Geneva begins from childhood. For Alain and his friends, the lake was a special space for games, adventure, challenges and above all freedom.

At 12 years old, accompanied by friend Jean-Pierre who was in charge of rowing the small fishing boat borrowed from a local fisherman, Alain swam across the lake from Nernier to Nyon, in total 5km. From then on, his bond with the lake never stopped growing, even when he dedicated himself to swimming in the pool.

He won his first Swiss Championship in 1967 and went on to participate in the 1970 European Championships and the 1972 Olympic Games. In 1985 he swam around the coast of France (a total of 20 stages along the french coasts).

In 1986 Alain became the first person to swim across Lake Geneva from Villeneuve to Bains des Pâquis, Geneva in a time of 22 hours, 42 minutes and 30 seconds. He was supported in this endeavour by Anthony Ulrich, his trainer of 20 years and his friend Jean-Pierre, who had accompanied him during his first swim 22 years before.

LGSA’s Recap of 2021

And that’s all that we have to say about 2021. We have high hopes that our events will go on in 2022 and we hope to announce a lot more events, interviews, blogs and webinars shortly. Stay tuned! And if you have any questions, you can always contact us through the contact form or our social media profiles.