Singapore’s Chua Jia Long Completes Open Water Triple Crown in Record 23 Days
Chua Jia Long of Singapore has completed the three Triple Crown of Open Water Swimming in a record 23 days, culminating this week.
Chua swam the 32.2-kilometer Catalina Channel swim in California on Sept. 5, the 20 Bridges circumnavigation of the Island of Manhattan (48.5 km) on Sept. 10 and the English Channel swim on Sept. 27.
The last swim, which had been delayed due to weather, meant he finished the three swims faster than the 27 days taken by Joel Matos Ortiz of Puerto Rico in 2021. He’s also the first swimmer from Singapore to finish the Triple Crown.
He completed the Catalina swim in 11 hours, 17 minutes. The 20 Bridges took seven hours, 56 minutes, in rainy conditions. He made the distance from England to France in 12 hours, 41 minutes.
“I did not get a chance to really celebrate this with my loved ones,” Chua said in an interview with the Straits Times. “Right now, I’m still trying to process the experience while recovering from the English Channel swim.”
Chua made his first major open water swim in 2023, swimming 192 kilometers in New York’s Hudson River. He began challenging up to nine hours a day for this challenge starting in 2024.
He had to overcome “a long, uncertain wait” on the English Channel swim.
“I could not swim in the original window of between Sept 14 and 20 as the wind conditions were unsuitable,” he said. “So we extended our stay in the hope of clear weather. The swim on Sept 27 was confirmed only three days before and by then, autumn had officially started. The days were shorter and the weather had got colder. That made the Channel even more daunting.”
Chua, a doctor for the Singapore Navy, is raising money for St. Luke’s Hospital in Singapore with his accomplishments. He has set a goal of $1.5 million and has already raised more than $900,000, with donations open through Oct. 31. He raised $250,000 with his New York swim in 2023.
