Personal information | |
---|---|
Nickname | The Shark |
Born | Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA | August 16, 1963
Website | www.jimthesharkdreyer.com |
Sport | |
Sport | Swimming |
Strokes | Open water swimming |
Jim Dreyer (born August 16, 1963), self described as The Shark, is an ultra marathon swimmer. [1] [2]
Dreyer completed a 41-hour swim across Lake Michigan in 1998. He failed to repeat the swim in 2023. [3] He failed to complete the route once again the next year due to a his GPS running low on power. [4]
He towed a 906 kg worth of bricks for 35 kilometers from Canada to Detroit in 2013. The swim, which took place in Lake St. Clair, took 54 hours to complete. [1] [5] [2]
An Ironman Triathlon is one of a series of long-distance triathlon races organized by the World Triathlon Corporation (WTC), consisting of a 2.4-mile (3.9 km) swim, a 112-mile (180.2 km) bicycle ride and a marathon 26.22-mile (42.2 km) run completed in that order, a total of 140.6 miles (226.3 km). It is widely considered one of the most difficult one-day sporting events in the world.
The Comrades Marathon is an ultramarathon of approximately 88 kilometres (55 mi) which is run annually in the KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa between the cities of Durban and Pietermaritzburg. It is the world's largest and oldest ultramarathon race. The direction of the race alternates each year between the "up" run (87.6km) starting from Durban and the "down" run (87.7km) starting from Pietermaritzburg.
Mark Blundell is a British racing driver who competed in Formula One for four seasons, sports cars, and CART. He won the 1992 24 Hours of Le Mans. He was a Formula One presenter for the British broadcaster ITV until the end of the 2008 season when the TV broadcasting rights switched to the BBC. Blundell returned to the track in 2019, driving in the Kwik Fit British Touring Car Championship for the Trade Price Cars team. Blundell has returned to the series in a new role for 2020 helping to form the latest name to line the grid - MB Motorsport as Sporting Director working with Laser Tools Racing. He is CEO of Europe wide sports management group, MB Partners.
Dr. Vicki Keith Munro, CM, O.Ont, LLD, ChPC is a Canadian retired marathon swimmer, coach and advocate for disabled athletes. Her accomplishments include the first crossing of all five Great Lakes, a 100-hour swim and the world record distance of 80.2 kilometers swum using the butterfly stroke. Many people consider Keith as the face of marathon swimming.
Simon Christopher Lessing, MBE, is a British triathlete who won five International Triathlon Union (ITU) world titles. He also won races at 70.3, ITU long distance and Ironman-distance events. He set an Olympic-distance world record in 1996, and is noted for his 2004 Ironman Lake Placid win, where he set a course record of 8:23:12. In 2008 he retired from professional racing. Simon resides in Boulder, Colorado, United States, where he operates Boulder Coaching with Darren de Reuck.
George Young was a Canadian marathon swimmer who, on 15–16 January 1927, became the first person to swim the 22 mile channel between Catalina Island and the mainland of California. Though familiar to the Toronto swimming community, Young was only seventeen and a relative unknown in America, lacking the national recognition of a number of his competitors. Around three thousand spectators on Catalina Island watched the race begin. Young's 22 mile swim began with the sound of a starter's pistol on the Northeastern edge of Catalina Island at the narrow point of the Harbor at Isthmus Cove at 11:21 AM on Saturday, January 15, 1927, and ended the next morning after 15 hours 44 minutes at 3:06 AM on the rocky shores of Point Vicente Lighthouse, in Rancho Palos Verdes, South of downtown Los Angeles.
Petar Stoychev is a Bulgarian swimmer who is one of the most successful long distance marathon swimmers in history. He is one of the greatest marathon swimmers of all time and an honor swimmer in the International Marathon Swimming Hall of Fame. Stoychev has 11 consecutive titles of a major international open water marathon swimming FINA series since 2001 with more than 60 wins in individual swimming marathons. So far, he has swum over 60,000 km in pools, rivers, lakes, seas and oceans. Petar Stoychev has won 11 consecutive victories at the Traversée Internationale du Lac Memphrémagog in Magog, Canada (34 km) and at Lac Saint-Jean in Roberval, Canada (32 km). Also, he has won the Ohrid Lake, North Macedonia swimming marathon 11 consecutive times (30 km). His swimming achievements include swimming around the Manhattan Island in 2010 and winning the extreme Cadiz Freedom Swim in 2011.
The Barkley Marathons is an ultramarathon trail race held each year in Frozen Head State Park in Morgan County, Tennessee, United States.
James Crapo Cristy, Jr. was a financial manager for the Updike Company, and a school board President. He was a former American competition swimmer who specialized in distance freestyle events while swimming at the University of Michigan in the early 1930s. He won a bronze medal for the United States at the 1932 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, California in the 1500-meter swim, edging out his better-known freestyle distance rival and future actor Buster Crabbe, who had taken a bronze in the event in the previous Olympics in Amsterdam. Though his career would be in insurance and as a long-serving financial manager for Upjohn Company pharmaceuticals in Kalamazoo, in his spare time he would take an interest in public office, and serve as an elected school board member of the small Kellogg Consolidated School system. In 1961, he would run as a delegate to Michigan's constitutional convention and in 1968 be appointed by successive Michigan governors to serve on an advisory board to investigate options for public employee pensions and retirement funding.
Erica Lara Rose was an American competition swimmer who specialized in long-distance and open water events. Rose was a 5 km World Aquatics champion in Perth, Australia at only fifteen in 1998, was a four-time Pan American swim marathon gold medalist, a Pan Pacific 3.1 mile champion in 1997 in Melbourne, Australia, and a ten-time National Open Water swim marathon champion at 5 km, 10 km, and 25 km distances between 1997 and 2007. She competed with Cleveland's Lake Erie Silver Dolphins, Hawken High School Swim Team, the Northwestern University Swim Team, and for twelve years with the USA Swimming National Team.
Kenneth Mburu Mungara, also known as Kennedy Mburu, is a Kenyan long distance runner who specialises in the marathon. He holds the Master's 40-44 age group world record in the marathon.
Masakazu Fujiwara, in Japanese 藤原正和, is Japanese long-distance runner, who specializes in the marathon. He has a personal best of 2:08:12 hours for the event. He was the 2013 Japanese champion in the marathon and won the 2010 Tokyo Marathon. He trains at Honda Sports team.
Sage Rennie Karam is an American professional racing driver. He competes part-time in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, driving the No. 26 Toyota Supra for Sam Hunt Racing, the No. 32 Chevrolet Camaro for Jordan Anderson Racing, and the No. 35 Toyota Supra for Joey Gase Motorsports. He previously competed full-time and part-time in the IndyCar Series. He is the 2013 champion in what is now the Indy NXT Series.
Abderrahime Bouramdane is a Moroccan long-distance runner who competes in marathons. He represented Morocco at the 2008 Beijing Olympics and 2011 World Championships in Daegu, South Korea. After winning his first two marathons in Tunis and Marrakesh, Bouramdane represented his country at the World Championships in Athletics in 2005 and 2007.
John Alexander Maclean, OAM is an Australian triathlete, rower, and motivational speaker. A promising rugby league player in his youth, he became a paraplegic after being knocked from his bicycle by a truck in 1988. He subsequently became the first paraplegic to finish the Ironman World Championship and the first to swim the English Channel. Later, he was part of the athletics team at both the Olympics and Paralympics in 2000, and won a silver medal in rowing at the 2008 Beijing Paralympics. In 2014, he completed the Nepean Triathlon without using a wheelchair, after regaining some use of his legs through Ware K Tremor therapy. He is the founder of the John Maclean Foundation, which assists wheelchair users under the age of 18. As a motivational speaker, his clients have included eBay and Pfizer.
Tariku Jufar is an Ethiopian long-distance runner who competes in marathon races. He has won the Beijing, Beirut and Houston Marathons and has had top-three finishes in Istanbul, Mumbai, Los Angeles, Lake Biwa and Hamburg. His personal best for the distance is 2:06:51 hours.
John Karunga Kagwe is a Kenyan former long-distance runner who had back-to-back wins at the New York City Marathon from 1997 to 1998. He set his lifetime best of 2:08:12 hours as part of his first victory there. Kagwe's professional road racing career began in 1994 and he continued to compete at a high level until 2006. After he turned forty and entered the veterans category, he returned to running, making some appearances in 2011. He also won the Prague International Marathon and the San Diego Marathon.
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