Gillian Thornton meets the lady who has a passion for open-water swimming
Record-breaking Sally Minty-gravett talks to Gillian Thornton about her passion for open-water swimming.
SALLY MINTYGRAVETT never set out to break records. She simply loved swimming in the sea. So if a few lengths of the public baths leaves you wilting, you might want to stop reading now.
For Sally is the only person to swim the Channel in five different decades from her teens to her fifties. This year she turns sixty and already has a date booked for July 2020 to try to make it six.
“One man has done the swim across four decades but he’s stopped now,” she reveals when we meet in Jersey, where she has lived since childhood. So is Sally in the Guinness Book of Records?
She shrugs.
“I’ve never bothered. My time’s been officially recorded and that’s enough for me.”
But Sally’s recordbreaking achievements don’t stop there. Last summer, she became the oldest person – male or female – to complete the two-way crossing, an eye-watering swim of 36 hours and 26 minutes.
It was an achievement she’d dreamed about for 20 years, but her work as a swimming coach always got in the way.
Sally has taught thousands of youngsters to swim and for 27 years was President of Jersey Long Distance Swimming Club, but she gave up both in 2015 to concentrate on
training for the double.
Channel swimmers need to pre-book a slot well in advance, but may still have to wait for the right conditions, and for the two-way attempt, Sally needed an extra-large window of fine weather.
She reached France 15 minutes before midnight on August 29 and arrived back in Dover on the 41st anniversary of her first Channel swim.
“You’re allowed to stop for up to ten minutes, but I only stayed for four,” she reveals. “Long enough to clean my teeth, grab a snack, re-grease and take selfies with the friends who had come with me.
“On the way back, the sea was like glass – the perfect conditions – and I was able to get some sleep.
“Yes, Channel swimmers sleep whilst they swim! Your arms just keep going like a metronome. So when I feel sleepy, I just tell the crew and they put someone in next to me.
“It’s so important to have a good crew because they feed you, give you drinks, and generally watch over you.”
Sally’s never picked up anything nasty on her open-water swims, although she was so sick on her 2013 crossing that her crew nearly lifted her out. But Sally doesn’t give up easily.
“I’ve always loved open water,” she says. “There were no indoor pools on the island until I was twelve, so my brother and I always swam in the sea.
“I began my racing career in a pool, but after someone suggested I try long-distance swimming, I never looked back, coming second in my first event across Lake Windermere at the age of seventeen.”
Two years later in 1975, she was part of a relay Channel swim to celebrate the centenary of the first crossing, and 10 years later, she married team-mate Charlie Gravett.
Health problems have put paid to Charlie’s own Channel swims, but he’s Sally’s biggest supporter and was at her side when, in January this year, she collected an MBE from Prince Charles for her services to swimming.
“The Prince asked if I was going to continue and I said of course!” Sally says. “If a man can swim the Channel at seventy-three, so can I.
“I keep healthy on fresh Jersey produce, I swim in clean Jersey water, and I can find different training conditions off every beach.
“I swim because I love it. No way am I giving up!” n