Well, I disagree about the 'swim'...

As I said the escapees had more difficulties to deal with than the Tri-Ahtletes of today BUT... those Tri-Athletes make that swim easily. To my knowledge NONE of them has ever failed or even struggled. With freedom and your life on the line it's not hard for me to believe they could have conquered those 'difficulties'. And of course saying that I still don't think it likely they actually did make it, I'm only expressing the belief that it's far from impossible and would only mildly surprise me should we learn that they did make it.

And this... yeah, I agree with you that I'd like to learn that they did make it. Although... I'm not sure what their crimes were, exactly.... if they were murderers, child killers, then no.... I do NOT hope they made it.