KINGSPORT, Tenn. (WJHL) – Kingsport’s 100-Mile Swim Club is all about group challenges, and its latest tasks the group with swimming the distance to Europe.
A release from the Kingsport Aquatic Center (KAC) states the swim club has announced its next destination is Saint Mark’s Square in Venice, Italy. Club members swim at their own pace while KAC staff tracks their miles and progress. A map in the KAC lobby shows the route the group would take to swim the full distance.
The total distance the club members are aiming for is 4,689 shared miles. All of that distance will be completed indoors at the KAC.
“We swam to Hawaii, we swam from Maine to California, and now we’re taking the challenge across the Atlantic Ocean to Italy,” Chassy Smiley, assistant aquatic manager at the KAC, said in the release. “We’re excited about this journey, and we think our club members will be too.”
The club began in 2016, but Smiley said the COVID-19 pandemic made completing some of the journeys difficult.
“In 2018, we kind of did kind of an ultimate road trip,” Smiley said. “In 2019, we continued it with different major landmarks and monuments around the United States that maybe people learned about as they swam there. But then COVID hit, and we kind of had to stall out, and the car kind of lost some gas for a while. We finally finished the ultimate road trip [in] 2022. So in 2023, we’re excited to announce that it’s back in full force and we’re trying to let all those folks know you can come out and be a part of it again.”
The challenge officially begins Feb. 1, and registrations for it are being accepted. Club fees to join are $15 for members of the KAC or $25 for YMCA members and non-members.
To register, visit the KAC’s front desk, call 423-343-9758 or click here.
Everyone who participates in the challenge receives a club t-shirt, and swimmers may join at any point during the year.
