Traversée internationale du lac St-Jean, live.

32 km across Lac Saint-Jean

The Traversée internationale du lac St-Jean is a 32 km marathon swim across Lac Saint-Jean in Quebec, from Péribonka to Roberval, held every summer since 1955.

The 73rd Traversée is on Saturday 31 July 2027 and closes a festival week in Roberval that starts on 24 July. The swimmers leave Péribonka, on the far side of the lake, at 8:00 and swim to the harbour at Roberval. Each year about 25 men and women from around a dozen countries take part, racing for a purse of 80,000 Canadian dollars.

The race takes on average about seven hours. The lake covers more than 1000 square kilometres, its water varies between 16 and 23 degrees depending on the weather, and its waves can reach 2 metres. In 1994 the American magazine Outside named the Traversée among the six hardest sporting events in the world.

The history is long. On 23 July 1955 seven swimmers started the first crossing, and only Jacques Amyot finished, after 11 hours 32 minutes 10 seconds. John Kinsella won six times in a row from 1974 to 1979, and Stéphane Lecat of France set the 32 km record of 6 hours 22 minutes 48 seconds in 2000. Petar Stoychev of Bulgaria later won 11 times in a row.

The festival week around the race includes the Marathon de la relève, a 10 km swim for young swimmers from Mashteuiatsh to Roberval, along with shows and popular activities. Roberval calls itself the world capital of open-water swimming, and in 1966 some 25,000 people watched the swimmers arrive at the town quay.

On Livebib you can follow a swimmer live if they choose to share their own position from the phone they carry, for example in a tow float or on an escort boat. That position comes from the swimmer, not from the organiser's timing, and the official results are published by the organiser.