List of successful English Channel swimmers

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

First attempts

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 second 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 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 cheque 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 (1.6 KM) 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.[11]

Jackie Cobell had intended to make the 21-mile (34 km) 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 (105 km) 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 Country of origin Swimmer Year Time Notes
England to France  United KingdomMatthew Webb 1875 21:45 First crossing from England to France on 25 August 1875.[1]
England to France  United KingdomThomas William Burgess 1911 22:35 Second crossing from England to France.[1][7]
England to France  United KingdomHenry Sullivan 192326:50 Third crossing from England to France.[1]
France to England  ArgentinaEnrique Tirabocchi 1923 16:33 First crossing from France to England.[1]
France to England  United StatesCharles Toth 1923 16:58 Third crossing from France to England.[1]
France to England  United StatesGertrude Ederle 1926 14:39 First woman to cross in either direction.[1][13][14]
France to England  United StatesAmelia Gade Corson 1926 15:29 First mother to cross from England to France.
France to England  United KingdomMercedes Gleitze 1927 15:15 First British woman to cross the English Channel.[15]
France to England  United KingdomHilda "Laddie" Sharp 1928 14:58 15th to cross and the 5th fastest
France to England  United KingdomEdward 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  United StatesFlorence Chadwick 1953 14:42 First woman to swim the English Channel in both directions.[1]
France to England  CanadaWinnie Leuszler 1951 13:25 First Canadian to swim the English Channel.[17][18]
England to France  MexicoDamian Pizá Beltran 1953 15:23 First Mexican to swim the English Channel.
France to England  Egypt Abdellatief Abouheif 1955 11:44 Winner of a special 1955 race from France to England, competed against another 11 male and four female contenders.
France to England  PakistanBrojen Das 1958 First Asian (from Bikrampur, East Pakistan; now Bangladesh) to swim the English Channel, at the English Channel Swimming Competition in 1958. Das became a Bangladeshi citizen after the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971.
England to France  IndiaMihir Sen 1958 First Indian to swim the English Channel.[19]
France to England IndiaArati Saha 1959 14:20 First Indian woman and first Asian woman to swim the English Channel.
England to France to England  ArgentinaAntonio Abertondo 1961 43:10 First person to swim the channel both ways non-stop.
England to France  United StatesCharles Chapman 1981 12:30 First black swimmer to cross the Channel
England to France to England to France United StatesJon Erikson 1981 38:27 First person to swim the channel three way
England to France  United KingdomChris Little 1986 17:23 North Yorkshire Long Distance Club, Youngest person to swim one way until 1988
England to France  TunisiaNejib Belhedi 1993 16:35 First Tunisian to swim the channel, namesake of a trophy for swimming the channel at the highest tide.[20]
England to France  IndiaAshwin Krishnasamy 2007 16:07 Youngest successful swimmer (12 years old) to cross the English Channel for the year 2007.[21]
England to France  AustraliaJohn Maclean 1998 12:55 First paraplegic to swim the Channel.[22]
England to France  FrancePhilippe Croizon 2010 13:28 First quadruple amputee to swim the English Channel.
England to France  IcelandSigrún Þuríður Geirsdóttir 2015 22:34 First woman from Iceland to swim the English Channel.
France to England  South AfricaMargaret Duncan 1930 16:17 First woman from South Africa to swim the English Channel.

Records

Fastest
RecordCountry of originSwimmerTimeDate
Men AustraliaTrent Grimsey 06:552012
Men two ways New ZealandPhilip Rush16:101987
Men three ways New ZealandPhilip Rush28:211987
Women Czech RepublicYvetta Hlaváčová07:252006
Women two ways AustraliaSusie Maroney17:141991
Women three ways United KingdomAlison Streeter34:401990
Most crossings
Record Country of origin Swimmer Crossings
Women  United Kingdom Alison Streeter 43
Women two way  Canada Cynthia Nicholas 5
Women three ways  United Kingdom Alison Streeter 1
 Australia Chloe McCardel
Men  United Kingdom Kevin Murphy 34
Men two ways  United Kingdom Kevin Murphy 3
 Australia Stuart Johnson
Men three ways  United States Jon Erikson 1
 New Zealand Philip Rush
Oldest swimmer
Record Country of origin Swimmer Age Date Reference
Women  United States Pat Gallant-Charette 66 years June 17, 2017 [23]
Men  South Africa Otto Thaning 73 years 2014 [24]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 "Listing of Successful Swims". Solo swims. Retrieved 12 August 2009.
  2. ↑ Captain Matthew Webb, International Swimming Hall of Fame. Accessed 5 August 2010.
  3. ↑ Staff. "The Channel Swim: Burgess's Perseverance Rewarded After Fifteen failures", Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 12581, 11 October 1911, Page 8. Accessed 5 August 2010.
  4. ↑ Staff. "Henry Sullivan Crossed Channel - United States Swimmer Swam From England to France in 27 Hours 25 Minutes - Seventh Attempt - Third to Accomplish Feat - Capt. Webb and Burgess Other Two", The Montreal Gazette, 7 August 1923. Accessed 5 August 2010.
  5. ↑ Staff. "CUTS WEBB'S TIME IN CHANNEL SWIM; Tirabocchi of Argentina Is the First to Succeed Over the Calais-to-Dover Route. 16 HOURS 33 MINS. IN WATER Second Winner of L1,000 Prize Is Exhausted at Finish -- Toth Quits Near Goal. CUTS WEBB'S TIME IN CHANNEL SWIM", The New York Times, 13 August 1923. Accessed 5 August 2010.
  6. ↑ Staff. "TOTH SWIMS CHANNEL; MISSES 1,000 PRIZE; Boston's Man's Feat Just Two Days Too Late For Reward.", The New York Times, 10 September 1923, 5 August 2010.
  7. 1 2 Gallico, Paul (19 January 1964). "First Queen of Channel Swimmers". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 12 August 2009. The coach who joined the party abroad was none other than that Thomas Burgess who, 15 years before, had been the second to make the Channel crossing
  8. ↑ Rutherford, Alec. "EXPERT'S STORY OF SWIM.", The New York Times, 7 August 1926. Accessed 5 August 2010.
  9. ↑ Staff. "MRS. CORSON SELF-TRAINED.; She Has Swum Around Manhattan and From Albany to New York.", The New York Times, 29 August 1926. Accessed 6 August 2010.
  10. ↑ Staff. "MRS. CARSON STARTS TO SWIM CHANNEL; Woman Who Made Albany to New York Record Reported Making Excellent Progress.", The New York Times, 28 August 1926. Accessed 5 August 2010.
  11. ↑ Staff. "Sport: First Mother", Time (magazine), 6 September 1926. Accessed 6 August 2010.
  12. ↑ Staff. "Channel swimmer sets slowest record", BBC News, 27 July 2010. Accessed 5 August 2010.
  13. ↑ Severo, Richard (1 December 2003). "Gertrude Ederle, the First Woman to Swim Across the English Channel, Dies at 98". New York Times. Retrieved 11 August 2009. Gertrude Ederle, who was called America's best girl by President Calvin Coolidge in 1926 after she became the first woman to swim across the English Channel, died yesterday at a nursing home in Wyckoff, N.J. She was 98.
  14. ↑ She did it in 14 hours 39 minutes, breaking the men's record of the time by two hours. However, this swim attracted some controversy. On 16 August, The Westminster Gazette reported locals as saying that "Miss Ederle swam under the lea of one of the accompanying tugs" while another boat "navigated in such a manner as to keep the heavy seas and tides off her" and that "Miss Ederle was drawn along by the suction of the tug so that she was able to swim at about twice the speed she would have been able to swim under ordinary conditions." The Dover Express and East Kent News commented that "So far little information has been given of the detail of Miss Ederle's swim. The most extraordinary thing about it being that she made no westward drift with the ebb tide, which on the day in question ran westward for nearly seven hours."
  15. ↑ The Vindication Swim: Mercedes Gleitze and Rolex take the plunge and become world-renowned, John E Brozak, International Wristwatch Magazine, December 2003, Retrieved 24 September 2015
  16. ↑ "People of Note". Retrieved 10 August 2010. Edward Temme, a London insurance clerk, was the first man to swim across the Channel both ways, from France to England in August 1927 and from England to France on 18 August 1934.
  17. ↑ Bryan Finlay. "A Pioneering Canadian Marathon Swimmer". Soloswims.com. Retrieved 2017-06-22.
  18. ↑ http://www.soloswims.com/can-chan.htm
  19. ↑ Bose, Anjali, Samsad Bangali Chariutabhidhan, Vol II, (in Bengali)p. 268, Sishu Sahitya Samsad Pvt. Ltd., ISBN 81-86806-99-7
  20. ↑ "Nejib BelHedi - Solo Channel Swimmer". Retrieved 13 September 2015.
  21. ↑ "CSA Awards | Channel Swimming Association". www.channelswimmingassociation.com. Retrieved 28 March 2016.
  22. ↑ "Briefs". The Age. 1 September 1998. p. 7.
  23. ↑ TEGNA (2017-06-17). "Maine woman defies the odds at 66, sets record swimming English Channel". WCSH6.com. Retrieved 2017-06-22.
  24. ↑ "South African Otto Thaning, 73, is oldest channel swimmer - BBC News". Bbc.com. Retrieved 2017-06-22.
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