Ocean swimming champion terrified of what lurks below

Swimming fast enough to avoid her fears, teenage Abbey Smale has become one of the fastest ocean swimmers, male or female, in the country. And the Olympics are in his sights.

Abbey Smale is an enigma.

For one thing, the teen is dominating the waves, winning every race she has participated in in the NZ Ocean Swim Series for the past two summers.

On the other hand, he admits that he is terrified of the ocean.

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But it’s that fear that’s helping propel Smale through the water so quickly, making the 18-year-old the best ocean swimmer in the national series.

“Swimming in the sea is not something I like to do. In fact, I’m very terrified of the ocean, ”he says.

“It is simply not knowing what is under you. If I see a shadow, I get scared. Sometimes I see my own arm while swimming and I think something is following me. So I’ll start swimming faster and running.

“My grandmother and I have a good joke: the faster I swim, the faster I can get out.”

Kidding or not, it’s working. Smale, a Year 13 student at Garin College in Nelson, has not been defeated in her last nine events at the Banana Boat NZ Ocean Swim Series. Not only is she the best woman in fields of more than 300 swimmers, but she frequently finishes in the top six overall swimmers.

Despite her fear, her goal is to swim as far as she can, with the Olympic swimming marathon at the end of that ambition.

Last weekend, Smale was the first female home in the Legend of the Lake 3.5 km swim around Blue Lake in Rotorua, and the best girl in the national high school open water championships. Now he is preparing to make his mark in the pool at the New Zealand swimming championships in fifteen days.

Almost every day for the past 15 years, Smale has dived in the pool at the Aquatic Center in Richmond Township, south of Nelson, and learned to swim when she was three years old.

In addition to training in the indoor pool six days a week, she has just started working there outside of school hours, teaching young children to swim.

“I might move,” laughs Smale, who would like to be an elementary school teacher.

She was drawn to the ocean five years ago when her coach at the time encouraged her to train for the Epic Swim at Lake Taupo, an annual race that doubles as the national ocean swimming championship.

The training meant learning to swim in open water. So he started swimming every Thursday night at Nelson Harbor, a group swim organized by the local triathlon club. Now it has become a regular event on his calendar during the summer.

“This is how I started. There was a girl, Caitlin Delaney, who I really looked up to, and she swam with the new kids. So we went on the slowest wave and swam in line. That was very good, knowing that you are with other people is quite comforting, ”says Smale. “This is how it feels still now.

“Most Thursday nights, I find that I am swimming alone. Three or more boys will be in front of me, but there is no one around to be with me So I’m swimming trying to convince myself that I’m okay. “

It has been the same in a race situation, where Smale will find herself at the forefront of the women’s race, with three or four male swimmers ahead.

“If I see a kayaker in front of me, I feel safe again, knowing that there is someone around me. If something happens, I know I’ll be fine, ”he says.

She often has no idea who is in front of her; there is nothing in swimming in the ocean that can differentiate between swimmers and swimmers.

“Having people in front of you always pushes you. Knowing that they are there, you want to be better than them. Male or female, for me they are just swimmers, ”says Smale.

“What I love about open water swimming is that anything can happen during the day. You don’t know what the conditions will be like, who is in the group. That’s the challenge, it’s what makes it fun. “

So far this season, she has been the first woman to get out of the water at Swim the Shore and Bean Rock Swim in Auckland, Swim the Lighthouse in Wellington and Rotorua’s Legend of the Lake. In the 5km La Grande Swim in Akaroa last month, Smale was the fourth swimmer to come out of the water in a field of 325.

He will miss the next event, Mount Swim in Tauranga, because it is the day before the national swimming championships in Auckland. But he intends to end the season with Swim the Bridge, the annual Waitemata Harbor crossing.

Smale’s parents, Lisa and Mark, have been on the water’s edge since ocean racing began in 2019, winning the local Big Tahuna swim. He then decided to participate in as many 2020 series races as he could, obviously with his help getting around the country.

“In my first home run [at Takapuna]I started so badly that I had to pass a lot of people. I just assumed I was way behind, ”recalls Smale. “I remember getting out of the water and my dad was on the beach yelling at me ‘Go hurry!’ And I didn’t know why Then I crossed the finish line and they said ‘Abbey Smale, first woman’. And I was so confused. And dad was out of breath, he was so excited that I had won. It was a very nice feeling. “

His father is his “travel manager”, but his mother has participated in a couple of events this year. “Normally, mom is stressed out at home, trying to watch the live broadcast, but she doesn’t really know what’s going on. She’s just waiting for that phone call. “

Smale wants to go as far as possible by swimming in open water; The 10km swimming “marathon” has been an Olympic event since the 2008 Beijing Games. “It would be great to target that,” she says.

But she has no desire to swim in the ocean for long distances like her friend Caitlin O’Reilly. Last month, the 16-year-old swam through the Foveaux Strait, becoming the youngest person to complete New Zealand’s triple crown of crosses (she had already conquered Cook Strait and Lake Taupo).

“I just look at Caitlin and I think it’s amazing how she does it. I could never do that, just because I would be terrified. But it’s unbelievable, ”says Smale.

They met last year at a Swimming NZ remote camp. The year before, Smale had gone with a team from New Zealand to New South Wales for an open water event. But wildfires had gripped the state, and the day after they arrived, the event was canceled due to the risk of smoke.

“The experts said that being there was almost as bad as smoking. So we were in Sydney for only 24 hours, ”he says.

Last winter, his swimming was interrupted again, this time by Covid-19. So he joined a basketball team at school: “I really enjoyed being in a different atmosphere with a different group of people.”

But barring further disruption, Smale will focus entirely on the water this year, targeting another series of clean sweeps in the ocean.