About Michelle

Born in South Africa, 2x Olympic Open Water Swimmer – Michelle Weber competes in the open waters, specializing in the 10km event. Michelle’s passion and dedication has kept her on the South African Elite Squad for the last ten years where she’s competed at numerous World Championships, defended 17 national titles in the 5km and 10km open water events, claimed gold at the Junior World Championships and won 4 CANA African Games titles. As of late, Michelle swam across the English Channel in a new South African Female record time and has the Fastest Female Time for the Robben Island Crossing

Currently based in South Africa’s culinary capital – Franschhoek. Michelle comes from a close-knit family where she’s the second oldest of four siblings.

From a young age Michelle was quickly noticed for her long distance swimming abilities. At the age of 14 she swam at the South African Youth Championships. Here she won gold in the 100m, 200m, 400m and 800m freestyle events and broke the South African age group records in each of those events. A month later she competed at the Snr. National Championships and broke the 1500m SA age group record in a time of 16 minutes 35 seconds. This qualified her for her first FINA World Championships. Five months later she again lowered her own record to a 16 minutes 27 seconds making her the 3rd fastest 1500m female swimmer in South African history.

In 2012 Michelle made a swift transition from pool to open water when she competed at the Junior World Championships in Canada. Here she won her first world title and was fixated on the adventures that open water swimming gave. Searching for events across South Africa, Michelle and her family took plenty of road trips to compete on any available weekend.

To date, Michelle’s most memorable sporting experience was competing at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janerio.

“After watching the Beijing Olympics back in 2008 – I knew it was something I wanted to be part of. I watched the entire event, I even skipped swim practice so I wouldn’t miss a race. When the Games were over, more determined than ever, I got back in the pool and trained extremely hard. While dealing with the highs and lows of sport there was no better blessing than being selected to be a part of the South African Olympic Team.”

In 2017 Michelle started the Share-A-Lane project to give back to the swimming community.

“Swimming has given me a lot over the years. It taught me how to get out of the hard stuff, how to set goals and how to motivate myself to achieve those goals. So I thought this would be a great way to give back what I’ve learned as a swimmer.”

Still swimming, Michelle travels the world competing in some of the most beautiful seas, oceans, rivers and lakes. While remaining true to herself and the people around her, she strives to live a life to glorify God and expand His Kingdom.