Motivation:Wyatt Song, quite simply, is the Pioneer of Australian Ice Swimming and the foundation, around which 90% of successful Ice Mile attempts in Australia have been built. He is the founding country chair for Australia.
Australia has a reputation for producing Olympic swimmers and an enviable beach culture, however, under Wyatt\'s guidance Australia can claim to be an Ice Mile powerhouse. The 40 successful Ice Miles ranks Australia in the top 10 nations for miles completed, but its 33 separate swimmers ranks it in the top 5 for number of Ice Milers.
Wyatt has an envialbe record as a swimmer. He completed the first successful Ice Mile by an Australian in 2014 and is tied with Nick Hungerford for completing the most Ice miles by an Australian with 3. He competed at the first IISA world championships in Murmansk in 2015 and was a member of the first IISA Adventure to Antarctica in 2018.
Wyatt was the only Australian prior to 2019 to have completed an Ice Mile in Australia. Since 2019 a total of 30 Ice Miles have been completed by 28 different swimmers with Wyatt recorded on the IISA website as the observer for 27 Ice Miles completed by 25 different swimmers.
There are limited sites available in Australia where the water gets cold enough for Ice Swimming. After his initial ice mile was completed at Falls Creek in Victoria Wyatt has pioneered the use of 2 separate lakes along the Thredbo River in the New South Wales region of the Snowy Mountains, some 500Kms from his home in Sydney. Lake Crackenback at 1100m and Thredbo Pondage at 1360m offer flexibility to find a good water temperature.
Wyatt has acted as a mentor to those who want to take on the Ice Mile challenge, happy to give advice about training and suitable sites to acclimatise, often at least a year before an attempt and has observed many qulifying swims as well. He has co-ordinated over 10 events in the last 5 years to ensure swimmers have seconds, a suitable course, safety equipment & personel, re-warming facilities and medical cover. My attempt involved 10 swimmers attempting various distances over 1 weekend. There were many emails and a whatsapp group to co-ordinate resources prior ro travelling to the Thredbo valley and an in person briefing meeting with all the swimmers and their support crew to outline the plan for the weekend. I\'m sure most events would involve a similar amount of time and effort from Wyatt.
I hope you will consider Wyatt as an inductee for the International Ice Swimming Hall of Fame. He has pioneered Ice Swimming in Australia for a decade, first as a swimmer and now for the last 5 years he has focussed on supporting other swimmers and expanding the sport in Australia so that it ranks in the top 5 nations for the number of different swimmers to have completed an Ice Mile.
