A 16-year-old from California has made a huge athletic accomplishment — swimming the English Channel! On Saturday July 13, 2024, Maya Merhige swam the narrow arm of the Atlantic Ocean between England and France, which spans 20.5 miles. She successfully completed her swim in under 12 hours, at 11 hours and 39 minutes.
Maya is now one of the youngest swimmers to complete the Triple Crown of Open Water Swimming, which is a marathon swimming challenge that consists of the English Channel, the Catalina Channel in California, and Manhattan 20 Bridges swims.
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"I’m so grateful and excited to have successfully swum the English Channel and completed the Triple Crown of Open Water Swimming," Maya shared in a press release. "Swimming the English Channel this year was a big goal of mine for many reasons. This year marks my ninth year participating with Swim Across America."
"With the generous support of family, friends and others, I have been able to raise an incredible $100,000 to fight cancer, which has gone directly to the Swim Across America San Francisco beneficiary UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospitals," Maya added. The teen's fundraiser stemmed from a deeper reasoning.
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"This past year, I’ve also endured some health battles of my own, and my personal experience has made me even more inspired and passionate about supporting cancer research and treatments at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospitals," she explained.
In March 2023, doctors discovered a benign tumor on her pancreas following a skiing accident.
She ended up staying in the hospital for 10 nights in May, which impacted her training schedule and stopped her from swimming as much as she wanted to. When Maya started back up, she explained that she "really had to kick my training into gear."
The English Channel swim was not easy for the teen, but she persevered. "There were points while I was swimming the Channel where I wanted to give up," she recalled. "I swam through schools of jellyfish and had a lot of stomach pain, but I kept thinking that this doesn’t compare to what kids with cancer face. That helped me find the strength to keep going.”
"I knew I had to keep swimming hard, no matter how exhausted I was, in order to get past the tidal current and land on the French shore at Cap Gris Nez," she said. "But I made it!” And to top it off, she had her favorite meal, chow mein, waiting for her on the boat once she was done.
Her father and friend were on the boat for her full swim. Her mother, sister, and other family members waited for the swimmer back in England. "I’m exhausted, but very, very happy!” she said in gratitude of her support system.
While the English Channel is a major accomplishment, the teen is now on to another task — finishing high school. Maya will soon be entering her senior year, and she's ready to tackle that with the same positivity she uses to swim!
