Tamara Bruce Talks About Swimming Young And Fast On WOWSA Live

Sponsored by KAATSU Global, Perth, Western Australia.

The Boon wurrung (Bunurong) people of Australia are predominantly saltwater people whose lands, waters, and cosmos encompassed the territory around Western Port Bay and the Mornington Peninsula.

Tamara Bruce tells of her lineage, “My mother’s ancestry is Boon wurrung aboriginal people. They came from Port Phillip Bay Area in Victoria, Australia and then were pushed out and made there way over to Noongar aboriginal people in Western Australia.”

Bruce comes from a swimming family – with her father being an Australian Olympic coach – and her aquatic roots enabled her to do a 7 hour 53 minute crossing of the English Channel as a 16-year-old, 10 Rottnest Channel Swims including a 1992 victory that still remains the female record, the 40 km Sydney Harbour International Invitational Marathon.

Bruce and her fellow International Marathon Swimming Hall of Fame inductee Ned Denison talked about her career on today’s edition of WOWSA Live.

They discussed:

* growing up with 7 older brothers and sisters with her father, the Australian national team coach Roger Bruce
* doing her first marathon swim and staying alone in a hotel at 14 in November 1991 at the Sydney Harbour International Marathon from Manly and Darling Harbour
* toughing it out and enjoying rough water and Rottnest Channel Swim in 1992
* swimming marathons with GPS, beating the then world champion Shelley Taylor-Smith in 4 hours 32 minutes
* still holding the original Rottnest Channel Swim record of 4 hours 10 minutes
* swimming in a shark cage in Magnetic Island
* training at the US Olympic Training Center in Colorado Spring
* racing at the 1995 Pan Pacific Swimming Championships in Atlanta, Georgia with a fever
* serving as a coach/handler at the 2000 FINA World Open Water Swimming Championships in Honolulu, Hawaii

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