Avishag Turek

Avishag Turek is an Israeli open-water swimmer from Shefayim whose endurance career followed a long break from competition. She swam competitively as a child but left the sport as a teenager. In interviews she describes returning around twenty years later, encouraged by swimming coach Ori Sela. Her first open-water swim was in May 2013. The return eventually led from shorter sea swims to the English Channel.

On 1 August 2017 she completed the England-to-France crossing in 13 hours 35 minutes. The Channel Swimming Association records an arrival at 18:05, with Peter Reed piloting Rowena and Andy Pope observing. Her contemporary Jerusalem Post interview described her as the first Israeli woman to complete the crossing. She undertook the challenge in support of Make-A-Wish Israel.

Turek continued with Catalina in 2018 and Manhattan in June 2019, completing the three swims commonly known as the Triple Crown of Open Water Swimming. A 2019 organiser-supplied profile also described her tenth lengthwise crossing of the Sea of Galilee. In a separate interview that year, she discussed teaching swimming and helping people who fear water. Her involvement in a water-safety campaign connected her own return to swimming with encouraging safer participation by others.