Swimming the English Channel is one of the most challenging sporting activities there is. It is 21 miles of pain stricken swimming in a temperature of 15oC. Most people don’t have the will power to pull through the 21 miles but those who do are a part of the few that complete it. The first woman to swim the channel was in 1926 and her name was Gertrude Ederle who swam it in 14hrs and 31 minutes. And the fastest time ever to swim it was 7hrs and 25mins, set by Yvetta Hlavacova in 2006. Out of the 1,800 people that have swam and completed the Channel we have managed to interview Sarah Jane who swam it on the 1st August 2005 when she was 28 years old. Her time was 11hrs and 24mins. She swam it with her husband who she beat.
Sarah Jane lives in Jersey and is currently the fastest person, in Jersey to ever swim the English Channel. Before she swam the Channel she was actually training, to swim around Jersey which is a 48 mile swim, when someone who was swimming the Channel pulled out. She decided to take his space because she was doing all of the training. As a kid she used to swim competitively which made her a good swimmer, as she got older she still had the passion for swimming and started to swim in the sea. Slowly she started to lengthen her training sessions until she got up to 6hrs. Before swimming the Channel you had to be able to do a 6hr swim. When people came up to her and said “are you attempting to swim the Channel” she would say that she is going to swim the Channel which was keeping her positive.
To help keep her mind from thinking what could be in the deep ocean, she listed names and object that begin with different letters of the alphabet. We asked her if she ever wanted to give up and she replied “that thought never crossed my mind because I had to pay £2000 just to swim in the water so once I got in the sea I was dedicated”. She didn’t feel the water as being cold as the training had got her quite used to it by this point. Her husband on the other hand struggled quite a bit with the cold. She didn’t see wildlife bar a whole lot of jelly fish. Sometimes people would swim with her but they couldn’t swim in front of her or touch her in any way. They could also only swim with her for an hour at a time then they had to take an hour off. She was quite lucky that she didn’t swim in the dark. Her setbacks were she had diarrhoea and was badly sea sick.
Reported by Xander B and Alex C
