Hundreds of swimmers and volunteers are gearing up to dive in and make waves at the 7th annual Swim Across America – Motor City Mile open water swim on Friday, July 11, 2025, at the Belle Isle Beach House in Detroit. Participants can choose from .25-mile, .5-mile, 1-mile or 2-mile courses, and land and water volunteers are also needed for this inspirational event. Proceeds benefit the University of Michigan Rogel Cancer Center.
To register to swim or volunteer, visit swimacrossamerica.org/
“Detroit’s Motor City Mile brings together families, cancer survivors and Olympians who all share one goal: fund breakthrough research that gives patients hope,” said Patrick Weiss, event director of the Swim Across America – Motor City Mile, who is himself a cancer survivor. “Whether you swim a quarter-mile, kayak alongside a friend or cheer from shore, you’re part of a community determined to find better treatments for cancer.”
Since its founding in 2019, Swim Across America – Motor City Mile has raised more than $500,000 for the Rogel Cancer Center, supporting innovative studies in immunotherapy, early-detection science and patient-support programs. The Swim Across America grants at Rogel Cancer Center have specifically supported work in pancreatic, bladder, lung and colorectal cancers.
One of this year’s standout participants in the Swim Across America – Motor City Mile is Eva Rodansky, a research specialist at the University of Michigan Rogel Cancer Center and a dedicated member of Team Rogel. Eva has swum in the Motor City Mile for four years, but this year she’s taking her commitment to the next level. After completing her usual 2-mile swim, Eva, an elite-level speed skater who qualified for the 2006 Olympic Games, will lace up her Rollerblades and skate 100K (62 miles) around Belle Isle to raise awareness and support for cancer research.
“The grants funded by Swim Across America are critical to advancing early-stage research, especially in the face of recent federal funding cuts,” Eva noted. Eva’s journey as an athlete includes testifying before Congress about abuse in elite sports, but she emphasizes that nothing compares to the courage shown by cancer patients and their families. “This is my way of going the extra mile — literally and figuratively — for those impacted by cancer and the research that matters.”. Eva hopes her story will inspire others to get involved and support the next generation of cancer research pioneers.
In our lifetime, 1 in 2 men and 1 in 3 women will be diagnosed with cancer. Swimmers and volunteers join the Swim Across America community so that, together, they can change those statistics. The researchers Swim Across America is funding are the next generation of cancer pioneers. In 2025 alone, an estimated 2 million Americans will be diagnosed with cancer, and more than 618,000 are expected to die from the disease. Yet advances in treatment mean more than 18 million Americans with a history of invasive cancer are alive today — a number projected to grow to 22.5 million by 2032. Events like the Swim Across America – Motor City Mile open water swim helps fuel that progress.
Nationally, Swim Across America has generated more than $100 million for cancer research since its founding 1987 and has helped fund clinical trials that contributed to FDA-approved immunotherapies such as Keytruda, Opdivo, Yervoy and Tecentriq. Recently, Swim Across America was one of the funders of the breakthrough clinical trials at Memorial Sloan Kettering that showed that immunotherapy alone could successfully treat certain types of cancer. Swim Across America also recently announced two first of its kind gene editing innovation grants, awarded to Alliance for Cancer Gene Therapy and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute that supports the work of novel gene and base editing techniques used in advanced cancer research, including targeted therapies, immunotherapies and cellular therapies, with the hope that these grants accelerate better, safer and more effective treatments. The nonprofit now supports more than 60 research projects each year and has 10 named Swim Across America Labs at major institutions.
To learn more about Swim Across America – Motor City Mile or to register to swim, volunteer or donate, visit swimacrossamerica.org/
— The above press release was posted by Swimming World in conjunction with Swim Across America. For press releases and advertising inquiries please contact Advertising@SwimmingWorld.com.