Meet Neil Gilson, the Devon swimmer who became the first person to swim Switzerland’s 10 largest lakes in a gruelling 230-mile challenge

Meet Neil Gilson, the 40-year-old former international swimmer from Devon who has completed an extraordinary endurance challenge, swimming across Switzerland’s 10 largest lakes over two summers. Together, the crossings covered about 230 miles (370km), culminating in a gruelling 45-mile swim across Lac Léman, also known as Lake Geneva, that lasted just over 22 hours. Gilson’s achievement, known as the Legend of the Lakes challenge, marks the first time anyone has completed the feat. His final swim was particularly emotional, with his children, Lily and Jack, joining him for the last 200 metres. But Gilson’s story is about more than endurance swimming. He began the challenge partly to raise awareness of PANS and PANDAS, conditions that affected his son Jack as a young child.Neil Gilson’s journey from elite swimmer to Swiss lake endurance challengerGilson’s extraordinary swimming career did not begin with Switzerland’s enormous lakes. He was once ranked second in Britain for the 1,500-metre freestyle before eventually moving away from competitive racing and towards endurance swimming. His transition opened the door to increasingly ambitious open-water challenges, culminating in his decision to attempt all 10 of Switzerland’s largest lakes. Gilson trained extensively in a leisure-centre pool, the sea off the North Devon coast and the gym before taking on the challenge. His preparation was necessary because lake swimming brought its own set of unpredictable difficulties. Gilson told The Guardian that lakes could be more demanding than the sea, with wind producing choppy water and sudden walls of cold water. The BBC had also followed Gilson earlier in his challenge, documenting his progress and the extraordinary scale of his ambition before he completed the final lake.How did Neil Gilson swim 230 miles across Switzerland’s biggest lakes?Gilson spent two summers working through Switzerland’s 10 largest lakes, eventually accumulating approximately 230 miles of open-water swimming. The challenge required him to contend with dramatically different conditions across the lakes, from cold Alpine water to wind and strong currents. His previous experience on Lac Léman proved important. In 2024, Gilson crossed the lake in 22 hours and nine minutes, setting a world record at the time. Rather than stopping there, he decided to use that experience as the foundation for the much larger Legend of the Lakes challenge. The final crossing alone covered approximately 45 miles and lasted more than 22 hours. The challenge was far from straightforward. Gilson said Lake Maggiore, which involved a swim of around 40 miles, almost broke him after the water proved colder than expected. He had to increase his swimming pace to keep his core temperature up, using more energy than planned. Lake Thun also became difficult as the physical strain and pressure of completing the challenge accumulated.Why was Gilson’s final 22-hour Lake Geneva swim so difficult?The final crossing of Lac Léman became one of the hardest tests of Gilson’s endurance. He began swimming on Tuesday morning and did not finish until Wednesday lunchtime, spending more than 22 hours in the water. Around 18 hours into the crossing, he considered stopping as a strong current made the night-time section particularly difficult. Gilson told The Guardian, “It was so tough in the night, the current was strong.” He said he came “really close to stopping”, but the knowledge that his family was waiting at the finish kept him moving. His support crew travelled alongside him by boat, supplying coffee and encouragement during the marathon swim. Although he narrowly failed to beat his own Lac Léman world record, that was no longer the main goal. Completing all 10 lakes was the achievement he had spent two summers pursuing. As he emerged from the water, he had completed roughly 370km of swimming and became the first person to accomplish the Legend of the Lakes challenge.What motivated Neil Gilson to take on the challenge?Behind Gilson’s extraordinary sporting achievement is a deeply personal reason. His son Jack developed PANDAS after contracting tonsillitis when he was 2-3 years old. Gilson has used his endurance challenges to raise awareness of PANS and PANDAS, neuropsychiatric conditions associated with a range of behavioural, psychological and movement-related symptoms. Gilson told The Guardian that Jack had been a healthy child before suddenly developing severe symptoms, including aggression, OCD, tics and intense fear. The experience inspired his campaign to improve awareness of conditions that he believes remain underdiagnosed. That personal motivation was especially visible at the end of the final swim. His 12-year-old daughter Lily and 10-year-old Jack entered the water and swam the final 200 metres alongside their father. Gilson said there were “tears in my goggles” as they joined him, explaining that he had imagined that moment throughout the challenge. For Gilson, therefore, the 10 lakes were never simply 230 miles of open water. They represented a test of endurance, a family journey and a way to draw attention to a cause that has shaped his life. He now expects Guinness World Records to recognise the achievement officially, although other ultra-swimmers may eventually attempt to complete the same challenge faster.Catch the latest World News and Live updates. Download the TOI app.