Solo Swims of Ontario Inc.

Hall of Fame

Bryan Finlay

Born in Coventry England in 1943, Bryan was taught to swim at age 10 by his uncle, Roy Sutton. Despite all of Roy's efforts, Bryan persisted in swimming breaststroke and 50 years later continues to favour that stroke.

At age 14, Bryan entered and won the 60 yard breaststroke championship (Photo, Row 1, left) at Coventry Swimming Club's annual gala. The win led within a few weeks to representing the Midlands at the English Schools Swimming championships in Bournemouth in 1957, where he placed sixth in the final in 1:19.4 for the 100 yards Breast. He persisted with sprinting and played water polo for Coventry; however, his love of open air swimming, and a perverse tolerance of cold water in a city that harboured a dozen long distance swimmers, almost doomed him to being absorbed into long-distance swimming. In 1960, swimming with subsequent Channel Swimmer, Peter Fergus, he set a breaststroke record (and joint freestyle record with Fergus) of 3 hours 0 minutes on the 5.25 mile (8.4 km) course of Lake Coniston. A week later he led the field of freestylers from the 2-mile mark to the 5-mile mark in 10-mile Windermere championship. The over-confident start to the race led to being pulled from the water unconscious from cold and hypo-glycemia around the 7-mile mark. That was sufficient for Bryan to become hooked on a sport that has fascinated him for the rest of his life.

The following year, 1961, Bryan completed the Windermere race on breaststroke in 6 hours 16 minutes - 4 minutes outside the breast record - seen in the photograph (Row 1, Right) with Peter Fergus just 6 weeks before Peter's 16 hour 31 minute success in becoming the 19th person to cross the English Channel from England to France. Two years later in 1963, Bryan broke the Windermere breaststroke record with a time of 6:10 with Kendall Mellor as his crew (Photo, Row 2, Right). That same season, Kendall became the 79th person to cross the Channel with his time of 16:53. Bryan's exhausted condition, seen in the later photograph, was characteristic of many of his swims in the 1960's. The large Huricane, glass-lensed goggles that were so popular in those days are seen in the photograph (Row 1, Right). A come-back solo swim at age 35 on Windermere in 1979 encountered some quite rough and cold conditions (water around 15°C), with the result of a semi-conscious finish in 6:59:08. The photograph (Row 3, Left) shows Bryan propped against the wall of the Lakeside Hotel by his colleagues Perce Bull (Left) and Arthur Ayres (Right). Finishing 10-mile swims in this state convinced Bryan that he did not have the stamina or build to survive a marathon swim on the English Channel, so he concentrated on 5-mile swims on which he excelled during the early 1960's setting a breaststroke record on Coniston in 1963 of 2:31:54 in 1963. Amazingly, this record stood all-comers until Bryan returned to a BLDSA race on 16th July 1988 where, with perfect water temperature and wind conditions, he improved the time to 2:31:34 - a time that still stands at the end of the 2007 season - holding the record for 47 years!

Bryan and his wife, Helen, emigrated to Canada in 1972, where he met Bob Weir in the late 1980's and was introduced to Solo Swims of Ontario and marathon swimming on the Great Lakes.

An abortive attempt on Lake Ontario in 1992, and several storm-related failures on Lake Simcoe led to a 15-hour, 19 mile failure on Lake Simcoe in 1995. After a year out-of-work in 1996 and two subsequent years of work away from home, Bryan eventually got a job back in his home-town of London, Ontario, got his training together, mastered feeding problems, and beat the weather (Photo, Row 1, Centre) to complete the 22 miles from Barrie to Orillia on Lake Simcoe in 21 hours 9 minutes. As in his past swims, a team of swimming experts provided the confidence for the swim - with marathon swimmer Bob Weir (Photo Row 3, Right), and SSO Swim Masters James Salter and Peter Stahlkopf. In contrast to his early days of distance swimming, Bryan walked clear of the water (Photo, Row 4, Left) just suffering some beard-induced, skin abrasion on his left shoulder. A tough stage at the 17-hour mark involved low blood-sugar and an empty stomach that were characterized by hyperventilation, hiccoughing, and shivering; this problem was only overcome with the intake of solid food (cantaloupe) and a change from his ERG-Gookinaid electrolyte drink to tea with 8% glucose. Even at 56 years of age, there are things to be learnt about your body - especially when it's never been taken to those levels of performance before.

Frustration with the challenges of organizing a crew and support boats for swims on the Great Lakes, Bryan made an attempt on the English Channel on 4-5 August 2002. A four-month experiment with a drink containing a protein-electrolyte mix was his upset and an inadequate amount of dextrose in his reserve food supplies led to regurgitation for the last 10 hours of his 20-hour swim. His pilot, Duncan Taylor, waited for perfect wind conditions that provided essentially flat water and this was aided with water temperatures from 63-66°F; however, in a severe state of hypo-glycaemia and lapsing into unconsciousness, the pilot eventually had to order him from the water, just 800 metres from the French shore. With his exclamation "But Duncan, we're so close!", Bryan obeyed the pilot and raised his arms to be pulled from the water. In the exertion of being pulled onto the deck of the support boat, he passed-out - recovering with rest over the next two hours. . . Still learning about his physiology - now after more than 50 years of swimming !

Bryan has been associated with SSO since 1991, and has been its Treasurer since 1992. He also competes regularly in Masters Swimming, and held the Masters World Short-Course Breaststroke record (2:50.27 and 2:48.22) for the 40-44 age-group between 1986 and 1988.

And he still dreams of Lake Ontario and Channel crossings !

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Created: October 1998
Last Updated: 17th February 2007