Geraldton-born Joanne Norman completes the last leg of the open water triple crown

Geraldton-born Joanne Norman has joined an elite group of less than 300 swimmers to ever complete the open water triple crown. The triple crown, which involves swimming the 32km English Channel, 45km swim through 20 Manhattan bridges and the 32km Catalina Channel, has been completed by just 292 swimmers, only a third of those being women, and only 35 Australians. After conquering the English Channel in 2021 and the Manhattan Swim in 2022, Norman had her sights set on the Catalina Channel, a night swim which goes from the Catalina island to the Californian mainland. With the intensity of completing these swims, Norman said it would take a lot of time and preparation to get ready. “There’s a lot of preparation that goes into these swims, it’s not just the physical prep that you’ve got to do, it’s mental, it’s nutrition,” she said. “It’s not so much the psychical prep that gets you over the line, it’s your mental strength. “On these long swims, anything over six, seven hours, your body’s already fatigued, so how you cope with that and mentally lock that stuff down. . . there’s a lot of things I have to work on.” Norman completed the final leg of the crown on October 4, but she said the last one ended up being the most challenging. “To be honest, this was probably the toughest swim I’ve done so far,” Norman said. “Not that the others weren’t tough, these conditions were tough and physically, I’d had a few kind of hiccups which I hadn’t had before.” Swimming in rough conditions in the dark of night can be rough for anyone, but especially when already five hours into the swim, but the sunrise helped her push through. “As that progressed, it was the most amazing sunrise, I’ll never forget it, and I could hear dolphins swimming around me as the sun was coming up” Norman said. Now with the triple crown conquered, Norman has her sights set on the next mission. “The ocean seven is what I will look to complete next. . . I’ve done three of the seven and signed up for another two next year, the Cook Straight in New Zealand in February, and I’ve got the North Channel at the end of August” she said. “The reality of what I’ve been able to achieve, the triple crown certainly wasn’t on a bucket list. “Being able to do all of this in my early 50s and still have a full-time job. . . it was a good reality check. If you really want something, you could do it, and I’d set out to do it and I got it done.”