Dan Foster

Canadian Dan Foster completed the 42nd crossing of Lake Ontario, with a time of 19 hours 12 minutes on 15th August 1998, at age 33. Starting from Niagara-on-the-Lake in the early morning at 12:37 am, he finished at the Leslie Street Spit in Toronto at 7:49 pm. At the time of the swim, Dan was working as an Audio-Visual Technician and living in Mississauga, Ontario.

Dan competed for seven years as an age-group swimmer and qualified for senior nationals. He was a multiple medal winner at Junior National Championships in both 100m and 200m backstroke. In 1984-85 he competed for Indian River College and ranked top 10 in the country for all junior college swimmers in the 200m back. After college, he competed for the Etobicoke Masters Swim Club. In 1984, Dan came 5th in the world for the 5km open water lake swim at World Masters Championships. In 1997, he completed the Key West open-water Swim, placing 12th (10th man) with a time of 4:36:40 in a field of 70 swimmers who completed the course.

Dan's successful Lake Ontario swim came after a cancellation on the previous weekend due to rough conditions; however, his swim on August 15th encountered westerly winds of about 15 knots shortly after the start, with the waves increasing to 2 metres before dying down to almost nothing around 8:00 am. The water remained constant at about 70 degrees F throughout the swim, except for a warm start at 74 F in the Niagara River. The winds and waves in the early stages of the swim took their toll on Dan, who was greatly fatigued at the completion of the ordeal.