Swimming: Moss to join Legend of the Lake field

Former Rotorua swimmer Grainne Moss in 2002. PHOTO/FILE

A former world-ranked endurance swimmer, who has swum the English Channel and Cook Strait, will be on the start line for the inaugural Legend of the Lake event at Tikitapu (Blue Lake).

The big event is being staged on Saturday, February 28 in Rotorua and has been added to the popular New Zealand Ocean Swim Series this year.

It is also bound to bring back memories for Grainne Moss who completed seven epic Rotorua swims back in 2002.

Moss was regional manager at Carter Holt Harvey Forests, and living in Rotorua, when she swam the lengths of seven Rotorua lakes in seven days in 2002. In doing so, she raised money for the Rotorua Volunteer Coastguard and Surf Lifesaving Bay of Plenty while helping promote water safety and the importance of not swimming alone.

Fifteen years earlier, when she was 17, the Belfast-born swimmer 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 enjoying 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 all four of The Famously Rotorua Swim the Lakes events. That series starts with the Ecomist Blue Lake Multisport Festival at Blue Lake on January 30 and finishes with the Rotary Rotorua Open Water Swim at Lake Okataina on March 13.

The Legend of the Lake event on February 28 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," the mother of four said. "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 on race day.

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