No winter water too cold for Canberra’s international swimming sensation
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Imagine a –8-degree morning in Canberra and you wake up at dawn to begin a marathon swim in Lake Burley Griffin.
Alternatively, imagine taking a cold plunge in an ice bath, only staying there for 53 minutes.
This is just a small sample of human feats that 27-year-old Canberra public servant Veronique Wong Kai In did to prepare her for swimming the English Channel in June.
And it worked.
She completed the 34-kilometre swim in 16 hours and 34 minutes, joining an elite band of marathon swimmers around the world.
Not only did Vero (or Vero the Hero as her friends and supporters now call her) prove to herself she could do it, but she used the experience to raise nearly $10,000 and awareness for mental illness – something she has tackled personally through her gruelling marathon swimming challenges.
Vero is the second woman from Canberrans to cross the channel following Ashleigh Webb in 2023.
“For me, long swims are my way of proving to myself just how strong and capable I am, not only physically, but especially mentally,” she says.
“I’ve struggled with my mental health for over a decade. I’ve never really been able to find something meditative that could help me process my negative emotions or even positive emotions, that is, until I started swimming again.”
Vero started swimming as a child, but when her coaches encouraged her to take it more seriously, she backed away in her early teens.
“I just couldn’t picture myself waking up that early every day to go swimming. So I stopped altogether.”
It was only the proximity of the 50-metre pool to university that lured her back to swimming in 2019, and she made it part of her weekly routine to swim a couple of kilometres each week.
At the start of 2024, she joined Cruiz Adult swim squad at the Canberra Olympic Pool, and, under the guidance of some dedicated coaches, she started to take things more seriously – partaking in some open water races.
“I wasn’t doing it to win, because I’m certainly not that fast, but it was fun to be able to compare my own performance in open water to similar events throughout the summer.”
Things progressed quickly, however.
Vero completed the Australian Triple Crown of Marathon swimming earlier this year, consisting of the Fremantle to Rottnest (25kms), Palm beach to Shelly Beach (24kms), and the Derwent River (34kms) where she was the first ever person to have swum in the month of May when the average water temperature was 12.4°. It took 8 hours and 20 minutes.
She also holds the second fastest time to complete all three swims – completing them in 56 days, each 28 days apart.
“Training for such long distances has really shaped the way I view myself,” she says.
Vero had mused about a Channel swim for a few years before committing to it but says the intense training gave her structure, purpose and drive. Last year she began training in earnest.
“In June 2024, I participated in Vlad Mravec’s Vladswim cold water camp in Sydney. I managed to swim for seven hours straight, four of which were in the most intense storm where the water was choppy, it was very windy, and we were all pulled at seven hours because it was getting a bit dangerous. After the cold camp, and with the encouragement of other swimmers and Vlad, I signed up for the English Channel.”
It’s a 34km swim but Vero swam nearly 58kms to complete the cross thanks to the winds and tides.
Training consisted of swimming five days a week, 3-4 days in the pool before work and 1-2 days in open water. Her favourite spots include the Canberra Olympic Pool, the AIS, and, in summer, the Phillip Swimming & Ice Skating Centre (its closure is heartbreaking, she says).
For open water swims, it’s the lake, mainly Henry Rolland Park, where she can do an easy 1.5 km loop, Scrivener Dam, Black Mountain Peninsula, or Yaralumla Bay.
She keeps a close eye on blue-green algae outbreaks using the Facebook group Canberra Open Water Swimmers.
As for Vero’s ability to withstand cold water, she has built up her tolerance, taking cold showers for the last two years, and undertaking long-stay cold plunges at Recovery Lab in Braddon where she would progressively increase her exposure to a water temperature of 7-8°c.
One day she managed to stay in for 53 minutes. “I think I could have gone on longer, but the next person had arrived!” It is not something she would recommend to the average person.
She also wears less clothing in winter than usual.
Despite her rigorous training, by May this year, Vero was concerned that she would not qualify in Melbourne as planned, as the water temperatures were not cold enough.
“That was incredibly stressful because I was about six weeks before my English Channel window. I pivoted hard and flew myself and my parents to Hobart, where I did the Derwent River with Sea Rescue Tasmania.
“The skippers and organisers of the Derwent were the best I’ve ever experienced. It was such a mammoth swim that I think everyone on board the boat also really enjoyed it because it was kind of record-breaking. No one had ever done this swim outside of the December-March window. I had also expected to do the swim in 10 hours and ended up doing it in 8 hours and 20 minutes.”
She qualified and attempted the “Mount Everest” of swimming – the English Channel – in June. In fact, more people summit Everest than swim the English Channel, with only 2400 successful individual swims ever recorded. For Vero it was monumentally challenging.
“The swim for me was a bit of a nightmare. I look back at it fondly now, but at the time, I really didn’t think I’d make it.”
It took her 12 hours to get across the channel and then an additional 4 hours and 30 minutes to cross the last couple of kilometres. Instead of swimming 34 kilometres, she came closer to completing 58 kilometres. The water temperature was 15.7°-16°c and warmer than she expected, but after 13 hours in the water, getting to the French coastline, her mental strength abandoned her.
Luckily, some tough love from her dad did the trick.
She couldn’t have done it without her mum and dad who cheered her on from the boat with every stroke and have supported a hectic training regime
Crediting her parents for their unwavering support (Vero’s father has given up untold early mornings to kayak next to Vero on her training swims while her mum has kept the home fires burning and cooked all Vero’s meals as well as attending every big swim she has undertaken), she said at one stage she gave up.
“I saw Cap Gris-Nez to my left, and as the hours ticked by, the cape moved from my left to my right. I drifted so far and really wanted to give up. I remember yelling ‘I can’t do this anymore’ about three times. It was such a soul-crushing experience, to see where I wanted to go, but not having the strength to get there.
“My support crew felt so helpless because they didn’t really know whether to pull me out or not. My dad’s logic, though, was that if they pulled me out early, that would mean that I’d have to come back and do the English Channel all over again, and he categorically refused… He ignored my pleas to get out of the water, so I just kept swimming. But I think when I was yelling that I couldn’t do it anymore, I was just looking for validation to get out. Because ultimately, if I’d really wanted to stop, I would have just stopped. Since no one was giving me any validation to get out, well, I just kept moving my arms. And I’m eternally grateful to them for keeping me in the water.”
Somewhere in the last four hours, Vero got stuck in what’s called the Captain’s lap, when two tides collide and “water was being thrown at me from every direction”.
But eventually the waters calmed.
“At that point, my skipper told me that I just needed to swim for one more hour, and then the tide would change and take me into shore. When he said that, something in my head clicked back into place, as I realised that I could make it, I could swim for another hour.”
She also had a dear friend and supporter on board, Paul Kruger, willing (and shouting) for her to succeed.
As the shore approached, Vero’s eyes adjusted to what was beneath her, and all of a sudden, she could see the ground and then realise she could stand.
The first few steps were wobbly, but she made it to dry land to be met by Patrice Chassery, the man behind the Channel Swimmers Facebook group.
“I can’t even describe the moment; having someone on shore to greet me and give me a hug and tell me that I had made it was so incredibly emotional.”
Apart from proving to herself she could do something few have achieved, Vero has a host of people to thank – her support crew, her swimmer friends who rise early, her regular friends who understand her training schedule and her 8.30 pm bedtimes, and her boss, who has allowed her to pursue her passion in and around work demands.
One of the spoils of swimming the channel is to have permission to sign the wall of the White Horse pub in Dover!
After a well-deserved holiday with her parents in Lisbon and Finland, she has just returned to Canberra.
And while the temperatures are still freezing, Vero plans to keep up those cold-water swims. Until her next challenge, which is a complete about-face in swimming terms.
Vero will be heading heading to Tahiti in French Polynesia to swim the Tahiti-Moorea and the circumference of Bora Bora. Water temperatures are expected to soar to 26-28°c and this presents a whole new challenge for her as her nutrition will need to change considerably, and her body will have to adapt to warm water.
She has also decided that she will spend her 30s dedicated to swimming the Oceans Seven – that’s the seven channels and straits in the world after the English Channel including the North Channel, Catalina, Tsugary, Cook Straight, Gibraltar Strait and Molokai Channel.
So next time you drive across Lake Burley Griffin, keep an eye out for Vero, who will continue training no matter the water temperature. You can follow her journey on instagram @veroswims.
