Kevin will lap up the challenge

Fear of shark attacks has caused the organiser’s of Sydney Harbour Week’s Bridge to Beach event to cancel their 11km ocean-swim, but one man is still determined to go the distance.

Novice athlete Kevin Stevens will take the event to Andrew (Boy) Charlton Pool, on Woolloomooloo Bay, where he hopes to swim more than 17 km in five hours to raise money for autism.

“I think doing 11 kilometres in a pool doesn’t seem like a big enough challenge to me, so I’ve switched it around to see how far I can actually swim in five hours,” said Stevens, an insurance specialist from Newtown.

Now in its fifth year, the Bridge to Beach event sees entrants swim or kayak 11km from the Sydney Harbour Bridge to Manly Wharf.

Stevens, 42, said that, despite looking forward to the challenge, the increased shark activity meant he was relieved the ocean swim was cancelled.

“It obviously wasn’t going to be at dawn, it wasn’t going to be at dusk. We’d have paddlers with us and I think it would have been safe, but you still get that thought in your mind.”

Stevens completed his first harbour swim less than two weeks ago at the 8th annual Harbour Swim Classic. The event’s organisers used helicopters, patrol boats and divers to help put the swimmers’ minds at ease, as they made their way from the Opera House to Mrs Macquarie’s Point.

Bridge to Beach organiser, Dean Gardiner, said the swim was cancelled because it was held over a much larger area than the Harbour Swim Classic, and would be more difficult to monitor.

Gardiner said it was a hard decision to cancel that part of the event as so many swimmers had already registered. But there would still be 500 to 600 kayakers thumbing their noses at the sharks’ domain, preparing to paddle from the Sydney Harbour Bridge to Manly this Sunday.

“Everyone knows the sharks are always out there. Basically you’re just unlucky if something happens to you. We haven’t had any incidents in the past,” said Gardiner.

Stevens, whose son is autistic, said he hoped to raise $10,000 for the Giant Steps school for children with autism, and that he would personally match the total raised at the end of the event.