Anna Wardley
The challenges
World Ice Swimming Championships
Imatra, Finland
6-8 February 2009
I will be competing against a field of over 600 international swimmers at the annual event which is taking place in a frozen lake in Imatra on the Finnish-Russian Border. Competitors can only wear a standard swimming costume, cap and goggles and no substances such as grease or lanolin can be used to preserve body heat. The outside air temperature is expected to plunge as low as minus 20 and the water temperature will hover around zero degrees Celsius. The race organisers place jets under the water surf ace to prevent the water freezing. I will be competing in the women’s solo swim, the international relay and the synchronised swimming competition.
Double Windermere Swim
Lake District, UK
8-9 August 2009
At the beginning of August I competed in the British Long Distance Swimming Association’s Double Windermere Race. Over the course of one night and a day, I swam two lengths of the largest natural lake in England. At 21 miles, it is the same distance as the Channel and is seen as a classic warm-up for aspiring Channel swimmers. Well-worn distance swimmers say that if you can swim a double Windermere before you take on the Channel, you know you can swim the distance.
Hellespont Race from Europe to Asia
Turkey
30 August 2009
At the end of August I swam in a race from Europe to Asia. I signed up to compete in the annual race across the Hellespont, the four-mile wide channel that was the first line of defence for Constantinople. I swam the same stretch of water that Lord Byron swam across in 1810 in the wake of Leander who swam the straits every night by lamplight to visit his lover, Hero, a priestess of Aphrodite. I swam across the world’s most concentrated shipping lane on the only day of the year that it is closed to all traffic.
England to France - Solo Channel Attempt
24 September / 01 October 2009
In September 2009 I will take on the Everest of Marathon swimming – a solo swim across the English Channel. I attempted the Channel in August 2007 and narrowly missed reaching the French coast as the tide started to sweep me into the exclusion zone surrounding the Sangatte immigration Centre in Calais. I’d been swimming for almost 15 hours and was less than two miles from France when I had to be pulled out.
A successful Channel swim takes months of gruelling training and more than a little luck. Swimmers have to deal with the strong tides and waves, unpredictable weather, jellyfish along with the 600 commercial vessels and ferries that pass through the relatively narrow Dover Straits every day. Strict rules have to be adhered to in order for a swim to be recognised as a ratified attempt by the sport’s governing body, the Channel Swimming Association. Swimmers can only wear a standard swimsuit, a swimming cap, goggles and grease. No contact is permitted with their Channel pilot vessel during the crossing and those lucky enough to reach the other side have to fully clear the water in France in order to enter the elite rank of swimmers that have swam solo across the English Channel.
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