24 October 2022
In 2018, Sarah Thomas was treated for breast cancer. For most, that would have been the end to their endurance swimming career, but Sarah just used it as inspiration to break a new world record. Just one year later, in 2019, she became the first person to swim the English Channel four times non-stop! It took just over fifty four hours for Sarah to swim nearly one hundred and thirty miles…but this was certainly no ‘swim’ in the park! There’s far more to this sort of challenge than you might originally think.
We would be remiss if we skipped out on talking about Carlos Coste, who swam one hundred and seventy seven meter in just a single breath! It took him three minutes and five seconds, in which he was only allowed to wear a nose clip, goggles, and fins. Right behind him is a female diver named Veronika Kravtcove, who made it one hundred and sixty meters!
Breath isn’t the only thing that counts! Speed is a huge focus in the swimming industry. David Edgar holds the record for fastest speed reached in a swimming pool without fins, having made it to 5.05 miles per hour!
Not every record is broken by a single person. The record for swimming at the highest altitude was broken by a team! Herman van der Westhuizen, Even Feldman, Jean Craven, Milton Brest, and Christ Marthinusen got together to try and make history.. They went 5,915 meters above sea level, where they used pickaxes to cut open a swimming lane of thirty centimeters. They then spent five minutes swimming in water that barely reached 1.2C. As if it wasn’t incredible enough to break the record of highest altitude swim, two of the record breakers completed it in speedos!
Of course, we can’t leave Veljko Rogosic off the list! He might not have made record for the fastest speed without fins, but he did get the 2006 record for longest distance without fins…in the ocean! In just a little bit over fifty hours, he was able to swim 139.8 miles! Considering he wasn’t even going a full three miles per hour, that’s a huge deal!
Will you be the next person to break one of these world records? As it stands now, let’s give a big shout out to everyone who holds swimming near to their heart – whether it’s in the wide open sea, the local swimming baths or in your own garden pool.
