Margaret Sweeney (swimmer)
New Zealand swimmer (born c1930)
Margaret Isobel Lister (née Sweeney, born 1929 or 1930) is a former New Zealand swimmer who represented her country at the 1950 Empire Games in Auckland. She later took up long-distance swimming, and in 1955 became the first person to swim the length of Lake Taupō.
Biography
Representing Auckland, Sweeney won two titles at the New Zealand national swimming championships: the 220 yards breaststroke in 1949; and the 100 yards breaststroke the following year. She went on to represent New Zealand at the 1950 British Empire Games in Auckland, finishing sixth in the 220 yards breaststroke with a time of 3:28.0. She was also a member of the New Zealand team in the 330 yards medley relay, with Jean Stewart and Winifred Griffin, that was disqualified in the final.
Sweeney then turned to long-distance swimming, and worked as a professional swimming coach at the Tepid Baths in Auckland. On 30 January 1955, she became the first person to swim the length of Lake Taupo, making the 40-kilometre (25 mi) crossing from south to north in 13 hours 39 minutes. The feat would not be repeated until 1977 when local man Patrick Cox completed the marathon swim.
Sweeney made four attempts to swim the English Channel, in 1954, 1955 and 1968, but was unsuccessful on each occasion. In 1955, she was within 800 yards (730 m) of reaching the English coast when the tide changed and pushed her back; she finally abandoned the attempt after 12 hours in the water.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jan 1, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q40317047. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1929, 1930, 1950 and 1955.
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This entry incorporates text from “Margaret Sweeney (swimmer)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.