List of successful English Channel swimmers

This is a list of notable successful swims across the English Channel.^[1]

First attempts

Giovan Maria Salati was an Italian Napoleonic soldier. After the Battle of Waterloo, he was prisoner in England. On the night of August 16, 1817, Salati made his escape and he could attempt to swim across the English Channel. The escape attempt was successful as, the following day, he managed to land on the French beach of Boulogne. So he was the first swimmer across the Channel.

After a seaman had floated across the Channel on a bundle of straw, Matthew Webb made the crossing without the aid of artificial buoyancy. His first attempt ended in failure, but on 25 August 1875, he started from Admiralty Pier in Dover and made the crossing in 21 hours and 45 minutes, despite challenging tides (which delayed him for 5 hours) and a jellyfish sting.^[2]

80 failed attempts were made by a variety of people before Thomas William Burgess, on 6 September 1911, became the thirdd person to successfully make the crossing. He crossed from Dover to Cap Gris Nez in 22 hours and 35 minutes at his 16th bid. Burgess ate a hearty meal of ham and eggs before starting his swim and had only trained for 18 hours before he made the crossing, with his longest practice being six miles.^[3]

Henry Sullivan was successful in his seventh attempt. He entered the water in Dover at 4:20 on Sunday afternoon, 5 August 1923. Though the straight-line distance is 22.5 miles, choppy waters and capricious tides forced him to swim an estimated 56 miles. He reached shore at Calais at 8:05 in the evening of 6 August, finishing in 27 hours and 45 minutes.^[4] Two other swimmers completed the swim that same summer. Enrique Tirabocchi, from Argentina, completed the swim on 13 August, finishing in a record time of 16 hours and 33 minutes and becoming the first person to swim the route starting from the French side of the Channel.^[5] American Charles Toth of Boston completed the swim on 9 September 1923, in 16 hours and 40 minutes, missing by two days the expiration of a 1,000 Pound prize offered by the Daily Sketch for anyone who completed the swim, a prize that both Sullivan and Tirabocchi received from a representative of the Daily Sketch waiting on the shore with a check in hand.^[6]

Gertrude Ederle's successful cross-channel swim began at Gris Nez in France at 07:05 on the morning of 6 August 1926. Her trainer was Burgess.^[7] 14 hours and 30 minutes later, coming ashore at Kingsdown, Kent, England, in a total time of 14 hours and 39 minutes, making her the first woman to complete the crossing and setting the record for the fastest time, breaking the previous mark set by Tirabocchi by almost two hours. A reporter from The New York Times who had accompanied Ederle's support team on a tugboat, recounted that Ederle was confronted by a British immigrations official, who recorded the biographical details of Ederle and the individuals on board the ship, none of whom had been carrying their passports. Ederle was finally allowed to come ashore, after promising that she would report to the authorities the following morning.^[8]

L. Walter Lissberger financed the $3,000 in expenses that Amelia Gade Corson and her husband incurred in preparing for the Channel swim. Lissberger made a wager with Lloyd's of London betting that she would succeed in crossing the Channel, and received a payout of $100,000 at odds of 20–1 when she completed her swim.^[9] She was one of three swimmers who were trying to make the swim across the Channel at the same time starting at 11:32 at night on 28 August 1926, leaving from Cape Gris Nez. The two men with her failed, Egyptian swimmer Ishak Helmy dropping out after three hours and an English swimmer failing one mile from Dover's Shakespeare Cliffs.^[10] With her husband rowing alongside in a dory and providing her with hot chocolate, sugar lumps and crackers, she completed the swim in a time of 15 hours and 29 minutes, one hour longer than the record set by Gertrude Ederle three weeks earlier that summer.^[11]

Jackie Cobell had intended to make the 21-mile crossing by a more direct route in July 2010, but inadvertently set the record for the slowest solo swim, when strong currents forced her to swim a total of 65 miles in 28 hours and 44 minutes, breaking the record set by Henry Sullivan in 1923, who had been the third person, and the first American, to make the crossing.^[12]

First swims

Direction	Swimmer	Year	Time	Notes
England to France	Matthew Webb	1875	21:45	First crossing from England to France on 25 August 1875.[1]
England to France	Thomas William Burgess	1911	22:35	Second crossing from England to France.[1][7]
England to France	Henry Sullivan	1923	26:50	Third crossing from England to France.[1]
France to England	Enrique Tirabocchi	1923	16:33	First crossing from France to England.[1]
France to England	Charles Toth	1923	16:58	Third crossing from France to England.[1]
France to England	Gertrude Ederle	1926	14:39	First woman to cross in either direction.[1][13][14]
France to England	Amelia Gade Corson	1926	15:29	First mother to cross from England to France.
France to England	Mercedes Gleitze	1927	15:15	First British woman to cross the English Channel.[15]
France to England	Edward H. Temme	1934	15:34	First man to swim the English Channel in both directions. He swam from France to England in August 1927 and from England to France on 18 August 1934.[1][16]
England to France to England	Florence Chadwick	1953	14:42	First woman to swim the English Channel in both directions.[1]
England to France	Damian Pizá Beltran	1953	15:23	First Mexican to swim the English Channel.
France to England	Brojen Das	1958		First Asian (from Bikrampur, Bangladesh) to swim the English Channel, at the English Channel Swimming Competition in 1958.
England to France	Mihir Sen	1958		First Indian to swim the English Channel.[17]
	Arati Saha	1959	14:20	First Indian woman and first Asian woman to swim the English Channel.
England to France to England	Antonio Abertondo	1961	43:10	First person to swim the channel both ways non-stop.
England to France	Jon Erikson	1981	38:27	First person to swim the channel three ways.
England to France	Nejib Belhedi	1993	16:35	First Tunisian to swim the channel, namesake of a trophy for swimming the channel at the highest tide.[18]
England to France	John Maclean	1998	12:55	First paraplegic to swim the Channel.[19]
England to France	Philippe Croizon	2010	13:28	First quadruple amputee to swim the English Channel.

Records

Fastest

Record	Swimmer	Time	Date
Men	Trent Grimsey	6:55	2012
Men two ways	Philip Rush	16:10	1987
Men three ways	Philip Rush	28:21	1987
Women	Yvetta Hlavácová	7:25	2006
Women two ways	Susie Maroney	17:14	1991
Women three ways	Alison Streeter	34:40	1990

Most crossings

Record	Swimmer	Crossings
Men	Kevin Murphy	34
Men two ways	Kevin Murphy, Stuart Johnson	3
Men three ways	Jon Erikson, Philip Rush	1
Women	Alison Streeter	43
Women two ways	Cynthia Nicholas	5
Women three ways	Alison Streeter, Chloe McCardel	1

Youngest

• In 1988, Tom Gregory (UK) was the youngest male (11 years and 11 months) to swim the English channel, in a time of 11 hours 54 minutes.^[20]
• Lynne Cox crossed in July 1972, at age fifteen, breaking both the men's and women's records.
• On 31 July 1955, Marilyn Bell at age seventeen became the youngest female (2nd Canadian, 14th woman, 32nd person) to cross from France to England with her time of 14 hours 36 minutes.^{[21][22][1][23]}
• On 4 September 2010, BEST (Bristol English Channel Swim Team) became the youngest relay team ever to swim the English Channel, in a time of 13 hours, 25 minutes and 30 seconds. The average age of the boys-only team was 12 years, 118 days. They were piloted by Mike Oram of the CS&PF (Channel Swimming and Piloting Federation).
• Six Girls No Buoys, on 1 September 2013, became the youngest relay team consisting only of girls (five 13-year-olds and one 14-year-old) to swim the Channel, in 13 hours, 6 minutes and 19 seconds.
• Millie Elson, in September 2013, at age thirteen, became the youngest deaf person to swim the channel as part of the London-based Six Girls No Buoys relay team.

Oldest

• Otto Thaning of South Africa was aged 73 when he successfully crossed from Dover on 6 September 2014. He also holds the record for the fastest time for over 50 year olds, which he achieved in 1994 aged 53.
• Cyril Baldock was aged 70 years and 9 months when he crossed on 20 August 2014, taking 12 hours 45 minutes. Cyril is the 5th Australian to cross the channel.
• The oldest male swimmer to cross under the rules of the Channel Swimming Association is Australian Clifford Batt, who was aged 67 years and 240 days when he crossed on 19 August 1987, taking 18 hours 37 minutes.
• The oldest female swimmer is Susan Oldham of Australia, who was 64 years, 257 days old when she completed the 21-mile swim on 24 August 2010.^[24]

Other records

• Hassan Abdel Rehim (Egypt) and Eileen Fenton (England) won the first race, the Daily Mail Cross-Channel race, swimming from France to England on 22 August 1950.^[25]
• Other swimming crossings include: Vicki Keith (first butterfly swim crossing); Montserrat Tresserras (first Spanish swimmer); Abhijit Rao, the youngest Asian (6 August 1988); comedians who have swum the channel include Doon Mackichan, and David Walliams.^[26]
• In 1997, at the age of 32, Mike Taylor became the first person with diagnosed multiple sclerosis to take part in a completed relay across the English Channel, swimming the first section without use of his legs.^[27][28]
• Charlotte Samuels completed the swim from England to France on 8 September 2014 at age 16. By completing the crossing, she became the youngest person to complete the Triple Crown of Swimming (21 mi (34 kilometres) across the English Channel, 20.1 mi (32.3 kilometres) between Catalina Island and the mainland in Southern California, USA, and 28.5 mi (45.9 kilometres) around Manhattan Island in New York City, USA).

References

External links

• Full list of successful Channel swims and swimmer information
• Full list of Channel swim results, records and swimmer information