He ended his ordeal by celebrating in front to the Houses of Parliament in London where in front of a hundred journalists and onlookers, he met with British Prime Minister Tony Blair urging him consider a 20-per cent reduction in carbon dioxide emissions by 2010. Image courtesy of yahoo.com (click to enlarge).
Already January this year, Lewis Pough made history in Sydney (Australia), completing the last of his long-distance swims in all 5 of the world's oceans. “There’s something very magical about swimming in all 5 Oceans of the world,” he said after swimming the Atlantic, Pacific, Indian, Arctic and Southern Oceans. “It feels great to have been the first to it!” Image courtesy of Lewis' website (click to enlarge).
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5 oceans record swimmer Lewis Gordon Pugh completes 200 mile swim of River Thames
Posted: Sep 20, 2006 03:49 pm EDT
(TheOceans.net) On August 7, 2006 long distance swimmer Lewis Gordon Pugh completed a tough swim across southern England making him the first person to cover the length of the River Thames. Pugh's swim is the longest along the Thames, almost double in distance than any previous swim according to The Age. The swim was 325-km (200 miles). Just for comparison; according to the rules of FINA.org, an Olympic pool should be 50 m long - which means that Lewis swam the equivalent of 6500 Olympic size pool lengths!
After 200-miles, off to bed
Pugh began his swim on July 17 in the western English county of Gloucestershire, where the river begins. He covered an average of about 18 km (360 pool lengths) a day and slept in a boat piloted by a friend.
The trip took him through the centre of London and down to the finish in south-eastern England, where the Thames empties into the North Sea according to TheAge.com. He ended his ordeal by celebrating in front to the Houses of Parliament in London where in front of a hundred journalists and onlookers, he met with British Prime Minister Tony Blair urging him consider a 20-per cent reduction in carbon dioxide emissions by 2010.
Pugh's swim is over 144 km longer than any previous swim according to The Age.
"I'm exhausted," Pugh told the Australian-based news service. "The sheer distance has certainly been physically challenging, although I suppose the other swims had more serious predators."
"I'm going home now and going to bed," he decided.
Icy waters versus trash infested ones
But despite the floating trash and heavy traffic of the Thames, this latest challenge comes as nothing new for Pugh.
The 36-year-old Welsh solicitor turned swimmer took his first dip into icy waters at the age of 22 when he swam the English Channel. Pugh currently holds the record for the most northerly swim - a 1 km sprint at 80°N off the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen.
Lewis was just drying off from his swim in the icy 0°C waters off the Antarctic Peninsula, which broke the world record for the most southern long distance swim ever undertaken, when he decided to plunge into the waters of the Indian Ocean less than a month later, followed by the Pacific Ocean 10 days after that.
At the end of January 2006, Lewis went for the Holy Grail of long distance swimmers as he dove into 20°C waters off Manly Beach (Australia). The 15 km swim to the Sydney Opera House took the British swimmer 6 hrs and 1 minute to complete.
And although the Pacific Ocean swim was a relatively easy one for Pugh compared to his swims on the Arctic and Southern oceans, according to his home team it was not without its problems. As he started out, Lewis immediately lost his electronic shark device – not great considering Manly’s reputation for shark attacks.
“It was a bit scary swimming in Australian waters after all the shark attacks here without an electronic anti-shark device but luckily we did not encounter any sharks,” said Lewis upon reaching land.
Lewis has completed a string of endurance swims in seas across the globe and in January of this year became the first person to complete a long-distance swim in all five oceans.
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