International Marathon Swimming Hall of Fame Announces 11 in Class of 2026
The International Marathon Swimming Hall of Fame announced 11 honorees in the class of 2026 to be inducted in a spring ceremony.
The 2026 honor swimmers are Millie Gade Corson, Andy Donaldson, Maria Digna Ezcurra de Ortellado, Barbara Hernandez Huerto, Alex Meyer and Marwan Saleh. Honor contributors include Irving Davids, Cliff Golding, Jacqueline McClelland, John Graeme West and Captain Roger W. Wheeler.
Paul Asmuth is the recipient of the Poseidon Award. Julian Critchlow will receive the Irving Davids/Captain Roger W. Wheeler Memorial Award. Carol Sing is the winner of the Dale Petranech Award for Services to IMSHOF.
The class will be inducted at the awards ceremony on May 16 in San Diego. Full bios for honorees are available here.
The honorees include two people for whom one of the awards is named, with Davids and Wheeler named on an award donated by the New England Marathon Swimming Association. It goes “to the organization or individual who has contributed the most to the administration of open water swimming” and has existed since 1971.
This year, the Davis/Wheeler award goes to Critchlow for his contributions. The British administrator has worked since 2004 compiling the database of English Channel swims, working to verify both current and historical swims from different sources. He also is an accomplished swimmer who crossed the Channel four times and was inducted to IMSHOF in 2021.
Davids hailed from the Boston area and began coaching in the 1920s in Southern California, his pupils include International Marathon Swimming Hall of Fame honorees Henry Sullivan and John Doty. Davis competed in professional marathons and was a member of the World Professional Marathon Swimming Federation. He served as a lifeguard, pilot, historian and archivist. Davids died in the 1960s.
Wheeler helped found the World Professional Marathon Swimming Federation. He organized the first John E. Fogarty Memorial Distance Swim in Rhode Island in 1968. He created the Rhode Island State Life-Saving system in the 1930s, was named director of the Division of Lifesaving for the State Department of Public Health for Rhode Island in 1935 and designed a life jacket for the Army during World War II. His name graces the former Sand Hill Cove State Beach – now Robert W. Wheeler Beach – in 1970. Wheeler died in 1969.
Corson was an early pioneer of female marathon swimmers in the 1920s. The native of Denmark was the third swimmer and second woman to circle Manhattan and the first to complete a unique swim of 187 kilometers from Albany to Manhattan. She swam the English Channel in 1926, three days after Gertrude Ederle made her trailblazing crossing. Corson died in 1982.
Donaldson is the first swimmer to complete the Oceans Seven within a 365-day period, which the native of Scotland did from August 2022-July 2023. The 34-year-old has also completed the Triple Crown and set speed records of the Manhattan circumnavigation, Cook Strait and Derwent River.
Ezcurra de Ortellado began as a pool swimmer. The Paraguayan pioneered several swims from 1954-57, including 381 kilometers from Concepion to Ita Enramada Puerto Pilcomayo; 179 km from Asuncion to Formosa; 80 km from Asuncion to South of Puerto Sara; and 27 km from Villa Hayes to Asuncion.
Hernandez Huerta of Chile has completed the Oceans Seven and Triple Crown in a career that began in 2017. It includes a two-way English Channel swim in 2025. The 39-year-old has blazed new trails in ice swimming, earning the nickname “Ice Mermaid.”
Meyer was an American Olympian in 2012, where he finished 10th in the 10K. He’s won a number of FINA (now World Aquatics) marathons, including the FINA Grand Prix Traversee du Lac St-Jean in 2016 for the final race of his career. He finished on the podium nine times in 22 world class events.
Saleh hails from Syria. His biggest achievement was winning the 1969 Capri-Naples race. He also won Lac Simon in 1969 and finished every race in his 15-year career on the po circuit. He set a men’s English Channel speed record in 1976 at 9 hours, 27 minutes, his second of three crossings.
Golding has assisted on more than 120 solo marathons over a 32-year career. The British official worked on the Dover Beach crew in England assisting Channel swims. A founding member of the Channel Swimming and Piloting Federation, he served two terms as a committee member and was a Master of Ceremonies for the organization’s annual awards ceremony. Also an accomplished swimmer, he crossed the Channel twice in eight attempts.
McClelland is the co-founder and director of Infinity Channel Swimming and a member of the Irish Long Distance Swimming Association, helping grow interest in the sport in her native country. He has supported swims in the North Channel since 2013 and crewed swims around the world. She has also innovated new methods to increase marathon swimming accessibility to swimmers with disabilities.
West served on World Aquatics’ Technical Open Water Swimming Committee from 2009-25, the last five as honorary secretary. He was a delegate at 36 events and referee at more than 20 World Aquatic marathons, led more than 50 international seminars and wrote technical official materials from 2010-25. The native of New Zealand was the technical events manager of the Tokyo and Paris Olympics; the chief referee at the Rio Olympics and an assistant referee in London in 2012. He has been a referee at seven editions of the World Championships, including as the technical event manager at the last three editions.
Asmuth, an American, will receive the Poseidon Award for his accomplished career, which included 55 pro marathons from 1980-2004, with 18 major titles. He won seven World Professional Marathon Swimming Federation Championships and swam the English Channel three times with a male speed record in 1985. He advised the U.S. open water national team at the 2008 and 2012 Olympics. He was inducted to IMSHOF in 1982 and to the International Swimming Hall of Fame in 2010.
Sing is the winner of the Petranech Award, having spent 14 years working with the organization. She served on the Catalina Channel Swimming Federation committee from 2002-22 and is an accomplished swimmer who completed the Triple Crown.
