„I AM A VERY AMBITIOUS PERSON. WHEN I STARTED LOOKING INTO OPEN WATER SWIMMING, I QUICKLY CAME ACROSS THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE IN THE SPORT: THE OCEAN’S SEVEN CHALLENGE.“
“The Ice Sea Swimmer“, a book by open water swimmer Lynne Cox captivated me. Crossing the English Channel like her was my big goal from the beginning. I had been working towards this goal for over a year. And finally, on 30 August, the time had come. If you want to swim across the English Channel, you have to deal with several difficulties. At just under 33 km, the stretch between Shakespeare Beach in southern England and Cap Gris-Nez in northern France is very wide to begin with. At the same time, it is also the busiest waterway in the world. Almost 500 ships pass through it every day. In addition, there are other aggravating circumstances, such as the often bad weather in the region, the wind and the strong current. At least we were lucky with the weather: “Of course it was windy and cold, but the conditions were good for the English Channel,” is how my coach summed it up quite well. In the first few hours, even the sun was shining and I was able to approach the task with a high level of concentration. At the beginning of the race you still think a lot, count your breaths, look at the landscape or the ships passing. But at some point you just swim without thinking. This is when it becomes dangerous, because you stop listening to your body’s natural warning signals. I found swimming increasingly difficult. I was breathing in the exhaust fumes of the ships all the time and swallowing more and more salt water. On top of that, I was still weakened by a tonsillitis in the run-up to the race. Nevertheless, I swam on, almost beyond my limits. After 11 hours, 35 minutes and 6 kilometres before the finish, my coach did the only right thing: he stopped the race and took me out of the water. I fully support my coach’s decision and am glad that I can rely on my crew! That doesn’t mean I regret crossing the channel. It was absolutely the right and logical next step and I would and will do it again and again.
