SWIM THE WORLD ROTTNEST CHANNEL
ROTTNEST COMES OF AGE
As Western Australia’s most famous swim celebrates its 21st incarnation, Sarah Warwick discovers why it’s still one of the must-do races in the world
Shortly after 5am in the still pre-dawn of a summer’s day 20 years ago, 16 swimmers stood goggled up on the
shores of Perth’s Cottesloe Beach, waiting for a signal. The beach – by day a busy tourist destination fi lled with surfers and sunbathers – was almost empty but for this small raft of swimmers, stretching and shivering under a cloudless sky in their caps and bathers. A little way off, a gaggle of offi cials, relatives and a TV news crew watched and waited, with no idea that they were watching the birth of something special. The fi rst annual Rottnest Channel Swim – RCS, or ‘Rotto’, to those in the know – which took place on that morning of 23 February 1991, began with Perth resident Kevin Holtom, who travelled to Los Angeles, California, in the late 1980s to witness the 40km Catalina Island Channel Swim. Inspired by what he had seen, he felt there was something similar lacking in Australia. “Swimming and surf clubs ran open water swim events,” he remembers. “But there were still people looking for longer and more challenging swims.”
Holtom founded the Rottnest Channel Swim Association
(RCSA) in 1989, and started to organise an event starting in Perth and ending at Rottnest Island, a popular holiday destination. Some people doubted his vision, and pointed to the diffi culties of ensuring health and safety on a mass
NEED TO KNOW
∆ Where: Cottesloe Beach, Perth, to Rottnest Island, Western Australia
∆ When: 26 February 2011 ∆ Qualifying: Unproven swimmers have to swim 10km. ∆ Fastest: Mark Saliba in 2000 with a time of 4:00:15. ∆ Youngest: 13 years, 9 months (now age restrictions state competitors must be 14 years old)
∆ Oldest: 72 years, 11 months ∆ Average age: 41 years ∆ Gender split: 36.5 percent female competitors and 63.5 percent male competitors
∆ Triple winner: Peter Galvin became the fi rst person to win all three categories of the Rottnest Channel Swim – the solo event in 1991, the duo event in 1992 and the team event in 1994.
∆ Every year: Peter Hodge, Steve Rogers and John Guilfoyle ∆ Most solo crossings: Barbara Pellick and Pete Tanham (23 each).
∆ Total crossings: 931 solo swimmers have completed 1,502 crossings, 16,500 people have participated in total ∆ Perils: Sporadic shark sightings around the island,
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participation event over an ambitious distance (19.7km or 12.25mi) in a wild and occasionally shark-infested stretch of sea. He persevered, however, believing that there were those out there who would be keen to participate. He pointed to the fact that it wasn’t the fi rst time that people had swum the channel. Aside from those who attempted to escape from the island when it was a penal colony in the 19th century, the fi rst recorded swim was the implausibly named Gerd von Dincklage- Schulenburg, who completed the swim in 9 hours and 45 minutes on 24 January 1956. The fi rst competitive crossing came two months later, when the Weekend Mail newspaper offered a cash reward to anyone who could better von Dincklage-Schulenburg’s time. On 18 March of that year, nine tried – and four achieved – that goal. Despite these previous successes, crossing was still considered a dangerous affair. The sheer distance meant the race would be hard to police, while currents and shark sightings caused worries for organisers. But these elements only added to the excitement for those who applied for the fi rst race. “When I fi rst heard about the Rottnest Channel Swim I decided it sounded like the sort of challenge I needed at that time,” says Barbara Pellick (pictured, above right), who jointly holds the record for the most crossings completed –
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