14-year-old swims solo across Lake Ontario
updated 5:35 PM EDT, Mon August 20, 2012
Annaleise Carr, 14, finishes a 31.6-mile solo swim across Lake Ontario just before 9 p.m. on Sunday.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- Annaleise Carr swam for nearly 27 hours in chilly waters
- The course across the lake is more than 31 miles
- She swam to raise money for childhood cancer
- She raised nearly three times her goal by Sunday evening
As Annaleise Carr
approached the Toronto shore, her red swimming cap bobbing up and down
as she swam freestyle, a crowd of supporters cheered and clapped. As
they watched her approach shore they chanted, "You can do it, Annaleise!
You can do it, Annaleise!"
Annaleise began her
charity swim at 6:17 p.m. ET Saturday at Niagara-on-the-Lake. She
climbed out of the water at Toronto's Marilyn Bell Park two minutes
before 9 p.m. Sunday.
The teenager did not
speak to the gathered crowd after her swim, instead going to the
hospital for a standard check-up, a spokesman said.
Staff in a kayak and an inflatable boat accompanied her to shore.
CNN affiliate CTV said Annaliese was allowed breaks during her swim so she could eat, but she had to stay in the water.
The teenager did her swim
for charity, aiming to raise $30,000 for Camp Trillium, a childhood
cancer center. As of 5:23 p.m. Sunday, she had raised close to $80,000,
according to her parents, who were updating her progress online each
step of the way.
"Unbelievable!!!!!" her parents wrote on her website, Annaleise's Lake Ontario Crossing. "We are so proud!!!"
The first person to swim
across Lake Ontario was 16-year-old Marilyn Bell in 1954, according to
Swim Ontario, the sport's provincial governing body.
Nearly 50 other swimmers
have completed the swim since then, but Annaleise is the youngest,
according to Solo Swims of Ontario, a non-profit group that monitors the
safety of long-distance swims.
One of the solo Lake
Ontario swimmers was Diana Nyad, who on Sunday was attempting to swim
from Florida to Cuba. The 62-year-old Nyad -- who completed her Lake
Ontario swim in 1974 at the age of 24 -- was a third of the way to her
goal as of Sunday evening.
In Annaleise's last blog post before setting off, she said she was well rested after sleeping nearly 12 hours the night before.
She wrote, "Dad says he
thinks I have ice in my veins :) I guess we'll find out because the lake
flipped yesterday and I'm looking at very cold water in Toronto now!
I'll do my best to deal with anything that comes my way...not just the
cold!"
Annaleise says on her
site that she has swum competitively since she was 4 and that distance
swimming has always been her passion. She began swimming in the lake
three or four years ago and said competing in open water is "way
quieter" than in a pool.
She says she chose Lake
Ontario for her swim because it's one of the hardest open-water swims in
the world, and she wanted to "accomplish something difficult" for
children who fight cancer.
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