THE director of the Lake District’s Big Chill Swim on Windermere has been inducted into an international hall of fame for his achievements in the sport.

Colin Hill, formerly of High Wray near Hawkshead but now of Howtown, Ullswater, will formally be inducted into the International Marathon Swimming Hall of Fame at a ceremony at Windsor in April.

Among many notable achievements, Hill, 46, was the Marathon Swimming Technical Operations Manager for the London Organising Committee for the 2012 Olympics. In addition, Hill came up with the idea of a mass-participation swim, now known as the popular Great North Swim, which draws thousands of competitors to Windermere each summer and first ran in 2008.

“I’ve been involved in open-water swimming for several years and for me it’s really rewarding,” said Hill.

“I’ve organised many events and travelled the world for this sport so to be recognised by your peers is really special. The people in the hall of fame before me as inductees are sort of my heroes so it’s really nice to be recognised in this way. It almost feels like the pinnacle.”

Hill, who swam the English Channel in 10 hours 30 minutes, unsurprisingly listed his Olympics involvement among his proudest achievements.

“It’s really hard to pick one because I keep doing things and thinking:‘It will never get better than this’,” he said. “But I think the London Olympics and blowing the horn to start the race is my proudest.

“It was pretty special. It doesn’t get any better than that.”

And he added: “I still hear from people who say they got into open-water swimming through the Great North Swim which is also important to me.”