Swimmer crosses Channel four times
A woman who overcame cancer last year has become the first person to swim across the Channel four times without stopping. Sarah Thomas swam for 54 hours – from England to France, to England, to France and back to England – battling strong currents, salt water in her throat and jellyfish stings on her face. The 37-year-old American completed the feat at 6.30am yesterday, but instead of the 80 miles it should have been, she had to cover nearly 130 miles after the tide pulled her off course.
A WOMAN who overcame cancer last year has become the first person to swim across the Channel four times without stopping, and scientists say her gender could be key to her success.
Sarah Thomas swam for 54 hours – from England to France, to England, to France and back to England, battling strong currents, salt water in her throat and jelly fish stings on her face.
The 37-year-old American completed the feat at 6.30am yesterday, but instead of the 80 miles it should have been, she had to cover nearly 130 miles after tidal pulls took her off course.
She celebrated with champagne and a pack of M & Ms on the beach in Dover.
Ms Thomas’s huge challenge was undertaken against the backdrop of being diagnosed with breast cancer in November 2017 and months of arduous treatment. She told the Financial Times earlier this month. “This time last year,
I couldn’t swim and really wasn’t sure what was possible for my future.”
Ms Thomas, right, who had undergone radiotherapy, added: “It was too painful to swim through my burns. I was told it wasn’t safe to swim because of the risk of infection.” Yesterday, she dedicated her historic swim to “all the survivors out there”. Ms Thomas works full time in Denver, Colorado, as a healthcare recruiter, but still finds time for 29 hours of swimming a week, covering 68 miles. Fuelling her Channel mission was a sports drink called Carbopro, designed for endurance athletes and infused with electrolytes and caffeine which helped keep her awake, but so did natural bodily instinct, according to Eddie Spelling, captain of her support vessel. “Some swimmers can actually sleep in the water, but Sarah didn’t do that,” he told The Daily Telegraph.
The 67-year-old has been escorting Channel swimmers for more than 10 years on his motor cruiser, Anastasia, “The human body is an incredible physical machine, but Sarah had a mental state beyond compare,” he said. “It is only through sheer bloody-mindedness and determination she could do what she did”. Ms Thomas had another advantage: her gender. Endurance swimming is one of the few elite sports where women are physiologically better suited than men, according to scientists. Swiss doctor Beat Knechtle has studied male and female performance in extreme events.
Looking at 30 years’ worth of finishing times at the 28.5-mile Manhattan Island Marathon Swim, he found that on average, the best women were 12 to 14 per cent faster than the best men.
She told the FT: “Women have an advantage due to their higher body fat, which provides insulation against the cold and better buoyancy.”
Given that wetsuits are banned for official open water attempts, this plays a huge role in long-distance swims.
Lynne Cox, who held the record for the fastest Channel swim in the Seventies, told the Science of Us website: “I think that the thing about women’s body fat helps. Besides, it being an insulator, you have a different level of flotation in the water, which may change the amount of work you do, so that makes a huge difference in energy expenditure.”
The four longest distances ever swum in open water, without the assistance of currents, have been completed by women.
The record of 104.6 miles was set by Ms Thomas in 2017 at Lake Champlain across the Us-canada border.