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Long Bridge Swim Articles

Long Bridge Swim is now providing safety and swim lessons!
LBS is now providing water safety and swim lessons to all of the third-grade classes in the LPOSD, along with most of the special-education students. Additionally, we serve students at Sandpoint Middle School, and Forrest Bird Charter School, Waldorf School and a number of other schools and nonprofit organizations. Altogether, in the 2018/2019 school year we served approximately 1,000 students in our program at the YMCA and Holiday Shores pools. In addition to instruction, we provide transportation for most of the students we serve. The Long Bridge Swim supports the training and Red Cross lifeguard certification for City Beach lifeguards. LBS also supports other projects that benefit swimming, such as replacing the pilings from Dog Beach along the causeway and being the anchor donor for the Sandpoint Parks and Recreation beach sand cleaning machine.

It has become a monster!
The Long Bridge Swim has become a monster, said race organizer Eric Ridgway, who 25 years ago came up with the idea to swim the 1.76 mile span of Lake Pend Oreille alongside the Long Bridge in Sandpoint. And a damn good monster, at that. More than 700 swimmers took part in the 15th Annual Long Bridge Swim, which once again broke an attendance record as word of the unique, 1.76 mile open water swim continues to spread.

Record turnout expected for Long Bridge Swim
Attention swim fans: It's back, and more popular than ever. More than 700 people are expected to hit the water � far surpassing the previous high � as the 14th Annual Long Bridge Swim gets underway Saturday in Sandpoint.

Leg cast no deterrent for Sandpoint swimmer
There is dedication and love of sport, and then there is swimming 1.76 miles with a cast on your leg because "I was dead-set on doing it." Jen Sandstrom, a 36 year-old mother of five from Sandpoint, swam the Long Bridge Swim for the first time last year and wasn't about to let torn ligaments in her ankle or a cast on her leg stop her this year. So she got her doctor's permission, wrapped a pink water wing around her pink cast, then basically used only arms to finish the swim in a remarkable one hour, 22 minutes.

Swimming Sandpoint style
For the first time ever, the race will also be the United States Masters Swimming Open Water National Championships. While there will be world class swimmers, former and current collegiate swimmers and a host of top-notch competitors tearing up the water, the race will also stay true to its original roots � namely providing a fun time for everyone while swimming north along the Long Bridge for 1.76 miles.

Fun the focus of the 12th annual Long Bridge Swim
World class swimmers, two sets of twins, numerous cancer survivors, a blind woman, an 85 year-old man and a 7 year-old girl will be among the more than 500 people taking to the water Saturday in the 12th Annual Lake Pend Oreille Long Bridge Swim.

Take the challenge and plunge into the Long Bridge Swim
Imre Schmidt wasn't the first to complete last year's Long Bridge Swim. But then, he wasn't the last either. Instead, the 83-year-old finished the 1.76-mile swim in a respectable 1 hour, 14 minutes and 30 seconds.


Crazy Lake Swimmers' Articles

Crazy Lake Swimmers blown by the winds of caution
As the houseboat trailed a lone swimmer heading down the river on Saturday, families came out to cheer and wave, construction workers stared expressionless at the unusual sight, and people along the river came out to snap some photographs. Concerned friends phoned and reported seeing the Crazy Lake Swimmers going the wrong way. What started out as the "Sandpoint City Beach to Button Hook Bay Down and Back Swim" evolved into the "Slingshot-Down the River Swim" as the boat tossed and turned and the captain became nervous in the early hours of Saturday morning.

Swimmers circumnavigate Lake Pend Oreille
The words "long" and "exhausted" were uttered often as a group of 10 local swimmers finally hit shore Sunday night after circumnavigating the entire coast of Lake Pend Oreille – a swimming feat unrivaled in both length and scope. "Historic," "teamwork," "incredible," "glorious" and "inspiring" were also mentioned upon completion of an adventure that lasted more than 46 hours and covered more than 83 miles – or 1.8 miles per hour for those scoring at home.

'Swimming into the dark'
The sun was just beginning to crest over the Cabinet Mountains, geese lined Sandpoint's City Beach and the air was filled with whoops and hollers as 11 swimmers came ashore Sunday morning after an historic 17-hour maiden voyage. Shivering, exhausted and jubilant at the same time, the team of swimmers had just become the first group ever to swim the entire length of Lake Pend Oreille. They started Saturday afternoon at Buttonhook Bay, which is located south of Bayview, and unexpectedly beat the Sunday morning sunrise to Sandpoint. All told they conquered 36 miles at an impressive clip of more than two miles per hour, which was much faster than anticipated.