Ion Lazarenco Tiron

A man from a small country made enormous effort in the name of peace.

     The  person who I admire is a wonderful man who of course did something  special, difficult and may be impossible for some of us. I heard about this great personality on the radio, about Ion Lazarenco Tiron.

     He was not a professional swimmer, he taught himself using the You tube, he hadn't a  trainer and had the smallest support team and budget, but in spite of them, he swam the seven most dangerous straits on the globe in the first attempt due to his power of mind.

     Ion Lazarenco Tiron was born on January 22^-nd, 1978  in Brăviceni, Orhei district, Republic of Moldova, living in his country he liked to swim in lakes and rivers but was never dedicated to this kind of sport.

     In 1997 he moved to Ireland and  worked as a bus driver, for 20 years he has been living there with his wife and two children.   In 2011 being inspired by Nejib Belhedi, who swam the entire 1,400km of Tunisia’s coastline to build bridges of peace not only in Tunisia but in conflict zones around the world, likewise Tiron decided to swim the Nistru River to unite people in good and bad times.

     Another motivating factor for Ion was to raise money for orphans and children with disabilities in Moldova. It made Ion to pass the challenges, but for this he worked very hard, first off all to train himself he swam the ice mile in the Wicklow Mountains, after that he decided to swim across the Strait of Gibraltar, completing it in four hours and 41 minutes, English Channel in 13 hours and 34 minutes, the third swim in the challenge, making the journey across the North Channel between Northern Ireland and Scotland in 16 hours and 23 minutes. It was one of the most difficult of the Ocean’s Seven because of freezing water, unpredictable weather and Lion’s mane jellyfish. Next he swam from San Pedro in Los Angeles to Santa Catalina Island at midnight.

      In October 2016, Tiron swam the Molokai channel in Hawaii in 18 hours and 11 minutes. During the fifth swim, he tackled 25m waves, big swells and sharks while being stung by man o’ war jellyfish.

     In 2017, Ion took on the Tsugaru Strait before facing the final swim across the Cook Strait between the North and South Islands of New Zealand.

     In 2018, he completed the entire Oceans Seven challenge. He is the first person who has completed the challenge from Moldova, the second from Ireland and the eighth in the world.

     He is a brave person and a very kind one, because he donates a lot of things: clothes, shoes, toys and appliances for poor, disadvantaged children and elders.

     This fact captured and surprised me because there are a lot of people in all countries in the world who have much more money, but they think only about themselves, unfortunately…     Ion Lazarenco Tiron is not the same, he is not very rich, so he took a credit to build a football field for children from his native village to awake their passion for sport.

    He is the person who keeps his promises. When he was swimming the seven most dangerous channels he promised that he will visit the most saintlt, Athos Mountain, and he did it. This changed him, his mind, his feelings, he was amazed of the fact that people do not need a lot of things to be happy. Like the monks on the mountain, they do not need a lot of food, they live
with their faith and he tries to do the same.

    Ion Lazarenco Tiron is a great personality, a good example and a big inspiration for me and perhaps for a lot of people, too.