Swimmer Spotlight: How Vedika Bolliger became the first woman to swim across Lake Geneva

On the early morning of 31 July 1999, a sailor heard a sound echoing over Lake Geneva. ‘Hallooo…Hallooooooo…..’ It shouldn’t have surprised him, but it did. There was a woman in the water of Lake Geneva, alone, at 6 in the morning, shouting hello at him.

That woman was Vedika Bolliger. She was the first woman that swam the length of Lake Geneva from Villeneuve to Bains des Pâquis (approximately 70km).

Vedika Bolliger is a Swiss marathon swimmer whose achievements include 5 successful crossings of the English Channel, swimming Lake Zurich both ways, several ironman challenges and multiday races. But even before swimming the English Channel for the first time in 1990, she was already in love with Lake Geneva.

When Vedika met Lake Geneva

It was around the age of 16 that she fell in love with Lake Geneva. She worked around the lake and had to go by train often. Seeing the lake from the train window, unfolding itself between the mountains, that amazing sight! That’s what made her fall in love with the lake. At this point, even though she loved to swim and had joined a swimming club, it didn’t occur to her that she would or could swim the lake. She was in love with the view, the lake itself.

Things went their way, Vedika kept swimming, and when she was about 22, she joined the Sri Chinmoy Marathon Team and that’s where she first heard of the ‘Channel’. ‘The channel?’ Vedika asked. ‘The English Channel. That would be a swim for you.’

They were right. In 1990 she crossed the English Channel for the first time. In the following years, she would swim the English Channel 4 more times.

And then, somewhere between English Channel crossings, Vedika decided that the time had come to swim Lake Geneva.

This is crucial in understanding how Vedika Bolliger became the first woman to swim Lake Geneva. She didn’t do it to become the first woman to swim Lake Geneva. She didn’t do it challenge herself, she didn’t train for years for the big swim. She did it because she loved (and loves) the lake and swimming.

Before she even got into the water, she had already swum the lake in her mind many times over. She didn’t have doubts about making it, didn’t go into the lake to challenge the lake.

Preparing for the big swim

Vedika’s swimming philosophy is that your mindset is even more important than your physical shape. Sure, training is important. When she got in the water of Lake Geneva, she already had 13 years of experience of long-distance running and swimming.

But knowing that you can do it, can carry you through the toughest of swims. She knew she wasn’t fast, but she also knew she had her own pace and could go on forever. She just needed patience with herself and the water.

So, when I asked about her preparation, instead of talking to me about training schedules, food choices, and everything, she told me about how they found the boat. Because finding a boat was one of the biggest challenges.

A few months before the swim, she still had not found a boat. Till she got a tip from a friend that knew a man. Back then there was nobody organizing these swims, and you had to do it alone. It was an older man in his 80s that, after hearing why Vedika wanted his boat, agreed to lend the group his boat.

For her team she chose people from her Marathon Team: Gunthita Corda, Pradeepta Bürgisser and Kanti Göddertz.

Swimming across Lake Geneva

About 5 in the morning, on July 30th, Vedika sets off for her swim across Lake Geneva. A few friends were on the shore, but no press. Vedika didn’t think it necessary to inform anyone, it wasn’t anyone’s business.

The first 24 hours go by without a hitch. The water is quite choppy but not impossible to swim in. Then, the waves get higher, and as the day breaks on the lake, she felt hungry. Where is her boat? And all of a sudden, it’s gone. Her boat is gone.

She is in the middle of Lake Geneva, at 5’o clock in the morning, with not a soul in sight.

‘It’s okay to panic now’ said a voice in her head. There was nobody. Like nobody. Absolutely nobody, Vedika repeats the word a few times. Nooobody. As if the repetition of the word echoed the loneliness.

But that doubt, that sliver of panic, wasn’t the only voice she heard. She remembers a joke her brother used to tell her. A son asks his mother: ‘Mama, how far is it to America? And his mother answers: ‘Shut up and keep swimming.’

‘Shut up and keep swimming.’ And Vedika kept swimming. It must have been an hour later when she saw the only other boat on the lake, a big, white sailing boat. What was she going to say? She had to explain what she was doing in the water at 6 in the morning, and if anyone wanted to help her, she would have to say that she doesn’t want to get out of the water. She is on her way to Geneva. Screaming help wouldn’t work. So Vedika did something else.

‘Halloooooooo…’ she shouted. ‘Halllooooooo….’ Her voice echoed and bellowed over the empty lake. The man on the sailing boat saw her, but he didn’t need any explanations. He had seen her boat and contacted them.

To make sure she was visible to her boat, the man on the boat gave her a flag of Switzerland, which Vedika carried while continuing her swim.

Her boat found her and now it was just a question of swimming. She kept going. And 42 hours and 45 Minutes minutes after her departure, she arrived at Bains des Pâquis. She made it. A few friends were there, somebody from the press shot a few photos, and that was that.

That night she slept 7 hours and the next day she was up and running again as nothing happened.

Two days after crossing Lake Geneva, being the first woman in the world to do so, she was working in a store when a customer came in. ‘Hey, you’re looking good. So brown, so relaxed. Have you been on a holiday?’

And Vedika answered: ‘Oh yes, I’ve gone for a swim last weekend in Lake Geneva.’