Swimming Record Setter Aims To Take More Medals At National Summer Games

Whether ocean, lake or pool, Tate Pichon has a natural affinity for water – he just loves diving in, whatever the challenge may be. For his latest challenge, Pichon joins an eight-strong team from the North Harbour club at the Freemasons New Zealand Special Olympics National Summer Games in Hamilton (December 8 to 12) and is competing in several of the longer distance races which are his forte, kicking off today with the 800m Freestyle heat as the first race of the day.

His journey in swimming has been a “whirlwind ride” since he first exclaimed to his mother Jo that “I’m not good at anything”. He was encouraged by several around him to join a local Special Olympics club and try swimming. Fast forward six years and the 25-year-old Special Olympics athlete set a record earlier this year for the fastest west-east crossing of Lake Taupo, covering over 30km and climbing out of the water after 10 hours and 26 minutes. The challenge was set with North Harbour club teammate Joshua Vegar, after last year’s postponement of the National Summer Games, as a way of helping fundraise towards the club’s participation.

Pichon and Vegar have become familiar faces in the Ocean Swim Series, the Takapuna Beach series and O Swim events where they have already conquered Akaroa Harbour, Wellington Harbour, under the Auckland Harbour Bridge and Bean Rock Lighthouse events. Over the past year, Pichon joined a global Endurance Swim Challenge swimming a total of 500 miles (over 800 kilometres) in ten months. He seemingly doesn’t feel the cold no matter the season, as he swims through winter without even wearing a wetsuit and regularly goes out in the ocean to “do a 5k”.

Pichon swims six times a week and sometimes twice a day, as well as working out at the gym up to four times a week. On his one day off, he helps his mother to teach a ‘shake, rattle and roll’ dance class for persons with intellectual disabilities in Kumeu. Swimming and dancing are just two of his interests – he also likes to “build with Lego, watch films and do things on his computer”. And yet he still finds time to do volunteer work in the agricultural sector, as well as mow lawns and donate plasma every fortnight.

For an athlete who has seemingly inexhaustible energy, in addition to intellectual challenges Pichon has low muscle tone and at times suffers from extreme fatigue, which he and his family manage through taking vitamins and slow-release energy foods. His mother Jo notes “we call Tate our sloth” and yet this cruisy, just over two-metres-tall guy, slices through the water “like a fish”. He agrees that his love of swimming is because “it is something I can do by myself” without depending on anyone, giving him a sense of freedom.

Earlier this month, Pichon returned from having successfully completed another challenge, this time in the pool at the Virtus Oceania Asia Games in Queensland, Australia. An international multi-sport event in the Oceania Asia region for elite athletes with an intellectual impairment, Pichon brought home a trifecta of medals in freestyle events: a Gold in the 800m, a Silver in the 1500m and a Bronze in the 400m. His mother Jo was happy for him just to set a PB (personal best), so to win a Gold medal was “outstanding”.

When asked about what he was most looking forward to at the National Summer Games, Pichon said “having fun and winning more medals”. He is certainly on the right track, as today he blitzed the field in his first event of the 800m Freestyle by two pool lengths, slicing five seconds of his Personal Best time.

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