The standard distance for a marathon run is 26.2 miles (or 42.195 kilometres), but how far is a marathon swim? the term “marathon swim” can have a variety of meanings and interpretations depending on the specific race.
It’s possible that as the sport develops and adopts new metrics, standards, and uniformity, the community will come together to agree on a single definition.
How Long is a Swimming Marathon
This is a Matter of Opinion.
The Olympic 10KM Marathon Swim is the most well-known marathon swim event, which is 10 kilometres (6.2 miles) in length as specified by FINA.
In the past, the Atlantic City Around-the-Island Marathon Swim was a whopping 22.5 miles in length.
- Distance swum in the Tampa Bay Marathon Swim is 38.5 kilometres (24 miles).
- The distance of the Manhattan Island Marathon Swim is 28.5 miles (46 km).
- To run the Italian Maratona Del Golfo Capri-Napoli is to cover a distance of 36 kilometres.
- The 57-kilometer distance of Argentina’s Maraton Acuatica Internacional Santa Fe – Coronda is impressive.
- The swimming marathon in Mexico’s Sumidero Canyon is 15 kilometres long.
- In Argentina, you can swim 15 kilometres at the Maraton Acuatico Internacional Ciudad Rosario.
- The Argentine Maraton Patagones Viedma has a distance of 15 kilometres.
- In Macedonia, you can swim 30 kilometres at the Ohrid Lake Marathon.
- The length of the Galata Varna Swim Marathon is 4 kilometres.
- Marathon swims are defined as more than 10 kilometres in length by the Encyclopedia of New Zealand.
- Marathon swimming is not a recognised distance by either U.S. Masters Swimming or USA Swimming.
Professional marathon swimmers came together in 1963 to join the World Professional Marathon Swimming Federation, which served as the de facto governing body of the sport for the next several decades. The shortest distance it swam was 16 kilometres.
The sport of marathon swimming has been the subject of numerous articles in Sports Illustrated. An article in the magazine claimed that one of Diane Nyad’s marathon swims was 10 kilometres long.
As established by the International Marathon Swimming Hall of Fame, a “marathon swim” must be at least 25 kilometres in length.
To collect money for the CKNW Orphan’s Fund, Tony Lyons completed a marathon swim of 42 kilometres (26 miles) in March 2009 in a 25-meter pool in British Columbia, Canada.
Last Words
The time it takes a world-class swimmer to swim 10 kilometres is roughly the same as the time it takes a world-class runner to run 26.2 miles.
After dispute over several distances dating back to the first century AD, the marathon distance was standardised in 1921.
For the sake of the sport, we can only hope that the marathon swimming community can reach a consensus more quickly than the running community. Thanks for reading our article How Long is a Swimming Marathon.
