A 10,000-km swim across the Pacific to spotlight pollution? Ben Lecomte ready to jump in

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A 10,000-km swim across the Pacific to spotlight pollution? Ben Lecomte ready to jump in

Ben Lecomte, 50, has been training for the swimming expedition across the Pacific three to five hours a day, six days a week, to raise public awareness about ocean plastic pollution. | Courtesy of The Longest Swim

By Oscar Boyd
Staff Writer

May 28, 2018

In early June, Ben Lecomte will enter the waters off Choshi Marina Beach in Chiba Prefecture to begin a 10,000-km (5,400-nautical-mile) swim across the Pacific Ocean that seeks to shine a light on ocean pollution and plastic contamination, and put Lecomte into the history books as the first person to swim the Pacific.

“I’ve been working on it for the last seven years,” says Lecomte in advance of his departure. “So I feel like a tiger in a cage, I’m ready to go.”

Born in Paris, Lecomte, 50, is no stranger to the challenge of endurance swimming. In 1998, he became the first person to swim the Atlantic Ocean without a kickboard, a 5,980-km journey that took him 73 days.