Raleigh Teen, 17, Conquers English Channel to Complete Rare Triple Crown

A 17-year-old from Raleigh swam from the coast of England to the shores of France, finishing a swim that weather had pushed back by days, and in doing so completed one of the rarest feats in endurance sports. Lorelei Schmidt, a Broughton High School student, crossed the English Channel in 12 hours and five minutes, capping off what is known as the Triple Crown of Open Water Swimming.

Schmidt's swim had originally been scheduled earlier in the week but was delayed until Friday because of weather conditions, according to WRAL. Once she got in the water, she joined fewer than 500 swimmers worldwide who have completed all three legs of the Triple Crown, per the same report. Her coach, Billy Thorne, who worked with Schmidt when she was a preteen, put the achievement in stark terms: “All these years and so few people have made it, and she's one of them,” he told WRAL.

A Three-Leg Journey Years in the Making

The Triple Crown requires swimmers to complete three of the sport's most demanding crossings: the English Channel, the Catalina Channel, and the 20 Bridges swim around Manhattan. Schmidt swam the Catalina Channel in 2024 and completed the 20 Bridges swim around Manhattan that same year, according to WRAL, before training for years to take on the English Channel. She is a member of the Marlins of Raleigh swim team, the same club where her coach, John McDonald, has watched her progress from local pools to open water.

McDonald praised Schmidt's technique and stamina ahead of the English Channel attempt, describing her to Seattle On Tap as a “diesel engine that just keeps going.” Her path into marathon swimming traces back to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, when local indoor pool closures pushed her into North Carolina lakes to keep training, the outlet reports.

Building an Endurance Resume Across the Country

Before tackling the Triple Crown's three signature legs, Schmidt had already built a lengthy open-water resume. In 2025, she spent more than 19 hours swimming Hawaii's Kaiwi Channel, a 45-kilometer crossing that Openwaterpedia describes as one of the world's most challenging stretches of open water in the Pacific Ocean. Openwaterpedia's records list her time on that crossing at 19 hours and 38 minutes under the escort of pilot Michael Twigg-Smith.

Her endurance base goes back even further. In April 2024, at age 15, she won the women's division and placed fifth overall in the SCAR Swim Challenge, a four-day stage swim across four Arizona lakes, finishing in 16 hours and 54 minutes, according to Openwaterpedia. A year earlier, as a 14-year-old, she completed two major Lake Tahoe swims, including a 19.2-kilometer widthwise crossing in 5 hours and 35 minutes and a 17.1-kilometer Viking swim in 5 hours and 14 minutes, both officially ratified by the Lake Tahoe Open Water Swimming Association. Her competitive roots go back further still — in June 2019, as a 10-year-old with the Marlins of Raleigh, she was part of a 200-meter freestyle relay team that set a U.S. National Age Group record for 10-and-under girls at the Poseidon Long Course Luau Meet in Virginia, per SwimSwam.

Unassisted, Under Strict Traditional Rules

Channel swims like Schmidt's are governed by strict traditional rules enforced by sanctioning bodies including the Channel Swimming Association and the Marathon Swimmers Federation. Those rules ban wetsuits or thermal aids and prohibit swimmers from touching support boats, requiring that food and liquids be delivered via thrown lines or poles roughly every 30 minutes, Seattle On Tap reports — meaning swimmers must maintain unassisted propulsion for the entire distance.

Completing the Triple Crown at 17 places Schmidt among the youngest swimmers in the sport's history. Vermont's Margaret Rivard holds the record as the youngest person ever to finish the feat, having done so at age 16 after completing her third leg in 2021, according to information from the U.S. Senate. A multi-year academic study analyzing Triple Crown finishers from 1875 to 2017, published on ResearchGate, found that female marathon swimmers overall averaged 0.06 kilometers per hour faster across the three legs than male swimmers — a data point that underscores the depth of company Schmidt now keeps.

Schmidt's finish echoes a similar quest documented in Hoodline's prior coverage of New York's Fleur Sohtz, another swimmer chasing the same rare title. For Schmidt and her Raleigh support network, the English Channel crossing marks the final chapter of a journey that began in local lakes during pandemic pool closures and ended among fewer than 500 people worldwide who can claim the Triple Crown.