Lynne Cox

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Lynne Cox (born 1957) is an American long-distance open-water swimmer and writer. In 1971 she and her teammates were the first group of teenagers to complete the crossing of the Catalina Island Channel in California. Ironically she was always the slowest swimmer in her swim classes. She has twice held the record for the fastest crossing (men or women) of the English Channel (1972 in a time of 9h 57 mins and 1973 in a time of 9h 36 mins^[1]). In 1975, Cox became the first woman to swim the 10°C (50°F), 16 km (10 mi) Cook Strait in New Zealand. In 1976, she was the first person to swim the Straits of Magellan in Chile, the first to swim across the Skagerrak, and the first to swim around the Cape Point in South Africa, where she had to contend with the risk of meeting sharks, jellyfish, and sea snakes.

Cox is perhaps best known for swimming the Bering Strait from the island of Little Diomede in Alaska to Big Diomede, then part of the Soviet Union, where the water temperature averaged around 4°C (40°F). ^[2]^[3] At the time, in 1987, people living on the Diomede Islands, only 3 km (two miles) apart, were not permitted to see each other, although many people had close family members living on the other island. Even more remarkably, her accomplishment eased Cold War tensions as Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev both praised her success.^[4]

Cox's most remarkable accomplishment was swimming more than a mile in the freezing waters of Antarctica. Although hypothermia would set in most humans inside of five minutes, Cox was in the water for 25 minutes swimming 1.06 miles. Her first book, Swimming to Antarctica, was published by Alfred A. Knopf in 2004.

Her second book, Grayson, the true account of her encounter with a lost baby gray whale during an early morning workout off the coast of California, was published in 2006.

In August 2006 she swam across the Ohio River in Cincinnati from the Serpentine Wall to Newport, Kentucky to bring attention to plans to decrease the water quality standards for the Ohio River.

The asteroid 37588 Lynnecox was named in her honor ^[5].

[edit] Notes

^ Dover Life - Successful Crossings 1973[1]
^ In 1987 Lynne became the first person to swim across the Bering Strait as a way to open the US-Soviet Border for the first time in 48 years with a time of 2 hours and 6 minutes. [2]
^ Associated Press. "Swimmer conquers frigid Bering Strait -- American's crossing of waterway to Soviet Union is unprecedented." August 8, 1987. Washington Post, p.A1.
^ Smith, Martin. January 31, 1988. "The transcendent power of the solo athlete." Orange County Register, p.J1.
^ [3], [4]