Media Release

22 January 2016

Endurance champion to tackle Rotorua Blue Lake swim challenge

A former world-ranked endurance swimmer will be on the starting line for the inaugural Legend of the Lake event at Lake Tikitapu (Blue Lake) next month and it’s bound to bring back memories of her seven epic Rotorua swims back in 2002.

It was while Grainne Moss was regional manager at Carter Holt Harvey Forests and living in Rotorua that she swam the lengths of seven Rotorua lakes in seven days to raise money for the Rotorua Volunteer Coastguard and Surf Lifesaving Bay of Plenty and to promote water safety and the importance of not swimming alone.

Fifteen years earlier, when she was 17, Belfast-born Moss became the first Irish woman to swim the English Channel, then represented Ireland at international level and in 2001 swam Cook Strait.

She began her Rotorua challenge the following year with a shortish 1.8km swim across the Blue Lake and finished with a 10km swim across Lake Rotorua.

“I’ve had many highlights in my swimming career and I am a shadow of my former self in terms of speed but looking back on those swims in Rotorua, that really was quite an achievement,” she said.

“I have had to accept I am no longer in the world top 10 but I still enjoy swimming, the challenge of it and I am looking forward to participating in the Legend of the Lake.”

Due to other commitments Moss, who is now managing director of the New Zealand health care business Bupa, is unable to participate in The Famously Rotorua Swim the Lakes four event series which starts with the Ecomist Blue Lake Multisport Festival at Blue Lake on 30 January and finishes with the Rotary Rotorua Open Water Swim at Lake Okataina on 13 March.

The Swim the Lakes event on 28 February this year joins the popular New Zealand Ocean Swim series. Moss participated in the second of the seven events across the Auckland harbour last month finishing the 2.9km distance in an “undisclosed” time.

“I live in Auckland now and travel over the harbour bridge every day by car so to swim in the harbour was a thrill,” said the mother of four.

“But I really am looking forward to the Rotorua swim.”

Moss will compete in the 3.5km I’m Going Long event which starts at 10.30am.

“It took me around 40 minutes in 2002. I’d be doing well to beat that now but stranger things have happened,” she joked.

Ends

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