Think of the phrase Triple Crown. What comes to mind? Horse racing first: Kentucky Derby, Belmont Stakes, and Preakness. Or perhaps baseball: batting average, home runs, RBIs, or for pitchers, wins, ERA and strikeouts.
For Alex Kostich, who grew up in Belmont, the Triple Crown occurs in Lake Tahoe, and he’s now two-thirds of the way done. The 56-year-old Los Angeles resident swam the 10.62-mile Vikingsholm crossing – east to west – in a record-setting 3 hours, 48 minutes, 51 seconds. There’s another big swim looming.
“My first thought was that I wanted to get back to the boat and get some corn chips,” said Kostich, a marketing executive by day with AMC Global Media. “I don’t want to allow myself that thought just yet… but I’d be lying if I said it didn’t cross my mind as I was swimming.”
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Born in Cambridge, Kostich lived in Belmont from ages 8 to 18 and visits home often to see his family at the Grove Street home they’ve owned for a half-century. His parents, who are in their early 90s, sister, and her son (Kostich’s nephew, an incoming kindergartener in the Belmont Public Schools) all live together.
The son of swimmers, Kostich swam competitively at Buckingham, Browne & Nichols and earned All-American honors in the pool at Stanford University.
Suffice it to say he’s stayed in shape ever since.
Last year, Kostich completed the Triple Crown’s first leg, a 12-mile journey across Lake Tahoe’s width. His nearly four-and-a-half-hour time beat the previous record by 15 minutes. That journey began at 4:30 a.m., with glow sticks for safety and accompaniment from a satellite-enabled boat.
Kostich woke up at 3 a.m. Monday, boarded a boat 30 minutes later and made it to the starting point by 4. He jumped in just before 5 a.m., surprised to find more temperate water than last year’s big swim. Kostich trained for a water temperature of about 63 degrees, which was the temperature during his swim last year. In 2026, the Tahoe water was about five degrees warmer than expected.
“This year, I jumped in the water preparing myself for that full-body ice cream headache, but it was actually balmy,” Kostich said. “It never felt cold for the entire duration of the swim.”
Save for an unexpected two-mile rough patch in the middle, Kostich flew. He averaged 21:35 per mile outside of those two tough ones, which he swam 30 to 40 seconds slower at a faster cadence. That average mile time was 50 seconds faster per mile than the first leg of the Triple Crown, which would’ve put him under four hours for the first leg.
“It’s reassuring to know you can pretty much set a clock to me,” Kostich said.
He smashed Jorge Angel of Colombia’s 2019 record by 31 minutes. The final leg of Lake Tahoe’s Triple Crown looms as the most challenging. Angel completed the 21-mile journey the year after Vikingsholm.
Kostich has not yet fully committed and expects to ramp up training in January should he decide to complete the third event. Other swimmers told him it’s more grueling than the English Channel, known as the Mount Everest for swimmers. Lake Tahoe also sits at more than 6,000 feet of elevation.
“I’m a completionist, so do with that what you will,” Kostich said. “I can’t help but think, ‘all right, I’ve done two out of the three, and the third gets me the Triple Crown.’ That would really test my limits and be above and beyond anything that I’m currently capable of.”