In the news: Dr. Michael Johmann swims Scotland’s Loch Lomond
Dr. Michael Johmann prepares to tackle an open-water swimming route. (Image credit: Chris Sifleet/Glasow Live)
August 19, 2022
As Michael Johmann welcomes his Comparative Humanities students this Fall semester, it will mark his thirty-fifth year teaching at the University of Louisville.
What those students may not realize, however, is that their professor—who is also a UofL alum—just became the first American male, and the oldest overall, to swim the Loch Lomond, a 21.6-mile freshwater loch in Scotland.
It took the sixty-and-a-half year old twelve hours and three minutes to complete the swim from Ardlui to Balloch, an approximately twenty-five-mile route by car.
According to Glasgow Live, there have been fewer than ninety full crossings of Loch Lomond in recorded history.
Johmann has been a swimmer much of his life, including through high school at Louisville’s St. Xavier. He didn’t return to the sport until his mid-thirties, when he joined Swim Louisville Masters. Five years later, he started open water swimming, starting with a 10K near Indianapolis and working his way up to a successful English Channel swim in 2014.
The opportunity to complete Loch Lomond, however, intrigued him as it would give him those two records: first American male and oldest swimmer overall. He also wanted to face the unique challenges of the Loch.
“Every swim is different,” he told the publication. “On a Loch such as Lomond, the weather and wind are changing constantly and once a crossing has started, you have to take what the Loch gives. There’s no getting on the boat and waiting for a storm to pass. … You either swim to the end, come what may, or you tap out and maybe have to wait another year for another chance.”
For the full story, visit UofL News.
