Luka Van Dijk went into the Dwight Crum Pier-to-Pier Swim with realistic expectations. Sure, he wanted to win, but Van Dijk was cognizant of the unruly nature of this competition, in which a swarm of nearly 1,000 swimmers race from the Hermosa pier to the Manhattan Beach pier. Van Dijk first competed in the event three years ago, as a 15-year-old Mira Costa student newly arrived to the U.S. from his native Australia. Last year, his senior year at Costa, Van Dijk actually managed to finish fifth.
“Going into the race this year, I was kind of like, ‘I really want to win this,’ but I didn’t necessarily think it would happen,” Van Dijk said.
The way it happened left Van Dijk still astonished a day later, as he recounted the turbulent last 400 meters of the race, which he won by one second, narrowly overtaking legendary ocean swimmer and LA County Lifeguard Kelsey Cummings on the run up to the beach in the closest finish in the history of the half-century old race. Cummings captured her eighth consecutive Pier-to-Pier women’s division victory and very nearly became the second woman ever to win the overall race.
Van Dijk had recognized Cummings in the water early in the race. ““She’s probably the best ocean water swimmer I know,” he said.
Van Dijk has more experience swimming competitively in pools than in the ocean, and so he knew that staying close to Cummings would be strategically wise. And so 400 meters from the Manhattan Pier, Van Dijk and Cummings were swimming side-by-side, both conserving energy by following the draft of the two swimmers leading the race at that juncture — Harvey Lark and Mitchell Bailey. It was at that point in the race everyone kicked into a higher gear, or, as Van Dijk described
“Everybody starts to make their move, to go for it,” Van Dijk said. “….We were just behind those other two swimmers, and they kind of take off. And Kelsey ends up slipping ahead of me, so we have a four person line, and I am fourth. As we are getting close to the pier, the two guys in front start going further away from the pier, out towards the ocean. Obviously, when you’re racing like this, you want to take the shortest line you can.”
Cummings was waiting to make her move. She saw the two swimmers in the lead take the outer route and pounced.
“I decided to turn in a little bit sooner than them,” Cummings said. “I turned in probably with like 200 meters to go, and it ended up really paying off.”
Van Dijk followed her.
“I remember thinking to myself, ‘I know Kelsey, I’ve swam with her before. I know she’s, like, a fantastic ocean swimmer, great strategy, everything like that,” he said. “So I’m like, ‘When she breaks off and starts swimming in, then I’ll follow her.’ And basically, as soon as I thought that, she just starts taking off in a straight line, just around the piers, like as close as you can be.”
The finish line is on the beach on the north side of the pier, and so once they swam past the pier, the race became a full-on sprint — not just swimming, but also trying to catch a wave in, and then actually running up the beach.
“Kelsey is definitely better than me at the real meat of the race, the actual swimming,” Van Dijk said. “But I guess because I am a guy, I can sprint a little faster than her, when I am really going full speed, and then I can run faster. And so when we are all coming down [to the finish] it’s just me and Kelsey going as fast as we can next to each other, and the two guys who kind of realized their mistake coming up behind us.”
Just then, at the end of a race that had featured mostly calm waters, a big wave came crashing. Van Dijk reckons if either he or Cummings had caught it, it would have given one of them a very sudden 15 second lead. But they both missed the wave, and Cummings caught the next wave just ahead of Van Dijk, getting her feet on the sand before he did. But as they raced up the beach, he overtook her just before the finish line.
“At that point, so close to the end, you can’t even think about anything but just finishing the race,” Van Dijk said. “But after we finished, I hugged her.”
Van Dijk finished at 37:57 and Cummings 37:58. He remembered a feeling of disbelief washing over him.
“It didn’t make sense,” Van Dijk said. “I was like, ‘Oh wow, I actually just won the race. Definitely an awesome feeling, but I was almost surprised by it.”
Cummings was stoked for Van Dijk.
“We were kind of working together during the majority of the race, and then it came down to a finish,” she said. “And either way it ended up, I was pretty happy one of us got it.”
Cummings said this was as much fun as she’s ever had in the race, in part because of the close finish and the excitement of the crowd who witnessed it.
“I am always happy to be part of the event,” Cummings said. “I think anytime the community kind of gets behind something, it makes it really exciting and fun, and then I am happy to put on a good finish like that. I was happy with the outcome, regardless of where I ended up.”
It was Cummings ninth time winning the women’s division. She won the first time she entered, in 2015, then finished second the following year, and has won every year since — except 2020, when the race did not take place due to the pandemic. In 2016, Cummings became only the second woman to have her name engraved on the Taplin Bell, after being a part of the victorious LA County Lifeguard team that year. This year, her name was written on the bell for the sixth time. She competed in the Taplin relay as well as the Chris Linkletter Relay Saturday night and two Intracrew Lifeguard events Friday night.
Race director Gary Crum said that the fact that Cummings had raced in multiple events the two nights before the Pier-to-Pier made her achievement all that much more impressive, in addition to beating every male swimmer except one.
“She’s 32 and Luka is 18,” he said. “So, you know, a 32-year-old beating all the young guys is pretty impressive. It’s amazing. She is a hell of a competitor.”
The only woman to ever win the overall race in the Pier-to-Pier Swim’s 62 year history was Diane Graner Gallas in 1998. Cummings was a wave away from becoming the second.
“She’s clearly a better swimmer than me and a better racer,” Van Dijk said. “I kind of got a little lucky this time…Sometimes, especially in open water swims like this, it just kind of turns out like whoever wins it, wins it right? It’s not about being the best.”
Cummings disagreed with Van Dijk’s assertion that she is a better swimmer than him.
“He’s definitely younger, and I’m old and washed up,” she said. “Each year it gets harder and harder, and I’m just older, and waiting for these young guys to beat me. This year, I was very intentional that I had to draft, and I knew I couldn’t break away any earlier because I couldn’t hold it myself. So that’s kind of how that played out.”
Larke finished second in the men’s division at 38:09 and Bailey third at 38:14. Mackie Hunter finished second in the women’s division at 41:23 and Eva Vass third at 41:38. And in a race within the history of the race, two of this year’s finishers are likewise neck-and-neck, across four decades.
“According to my records the most total number of Pier-to-Pier Swim swims for any swimmer is 41 swims, all consecutive, including this year, by Michael Campbell,” Crum said. “Michael has a one swim lead over Erik Zuckerbraun, who has 40 swims.”
The Crum family likewise has an unbroken chain that Gary is fulfilling. His father, Dwight Crum, was a legendary waterman and lifeguard who oversaw South Bay beaches for 30 years, and Gary followed in his footstops both by becoming the LIfeguard South Bay section chief and taking over as director of the race that was named for his father in 1973. Last year, a record 1,350 swimmers registered for the race, hailing from 35 different states. This year’s total was down a few hundred, but still robust, and in keeping with the rich history of the race, was crowned with perhaps the greatest ending the Dwight Crum Pier-to-Pier Swim has had.
“In the early years, when my Dad started, I think there were like 30 people in the swim,” Crum said. “They took the results with a pencil and paper. I give my Dad full credit for starting it and turning it into what it is, but I could say it was easier to run with 30 swimmers. That’s exactly what I would tell him if he was here today. He passed away in 2000 and he was my best friend. And so anything I could do to honor his legacy is well within my intentions.”
“It’s pretty unique. And so I’m proud to keep the legacy going.” ER
