With a 4:14.73 best time in the 400 meters and a 8:47.90 best time in the 800 meters, Amber Keegan (@amber.keegan) has the speed to swim among the world’s best both in the pool and open water. She consistently placed among the top 25 at the World Aquatics World Championships and World Cup events over the last few years.
But she barely missed qualifying for the Olympic 10K Marathon Swim to compete in Paris.
Disappointing to say the least after so many meters training hard in the pool and traveling the world on the World Cup circuit.
But all that hard work paid off handsomely today in the English Channel where the 27-year-old Keegan crushed a blazing fast English Channel time of 8 hours 46 minutes.
Her English Channel coach Tim Denyer (@coachtimswim) was onboard er escort boat Viking Princess II said on her way back to France, “It was an outstanding swim today by Amber. She left Shakespeare Beach like an absolute freight train, powering out alongside the starboard side of Viking Princess II, piloted by the legendary Brickell brothers, Ray and Reg Jr.
There was a light northerly wind giving her some gentle assistance, coupled with a helpful swell about an hour or so in. The feeds every 20 minutes were flying down and the kilometers were being eaten up. The decision to swim starboard was paying off as was the start time, an hour after high water.
We hit the North East Shipping Lane a touch after 4 hours.
Unfortunately, this was the start of the real pain for Amber. Hours 4 to 6 were the total opposite of the first 4 hours. Pain in her lower abs, getting cold, getting tired, and being mentally challenged more and more by each minute, really put pain to her attempt for a swim with a 7.“
But Keegan had not trained for years, becoming comfortable with discomfort, to simply give in to the situation. There was no giving up on this day.
Additionally, Red Top Swim head coach Denyer understands well the intricacies of crewing swimmers across many different channels and oceans swims around the world recalled, “She had to just park the pain to deal with it later and focus on getting the swim finished. Easier said than done, but her strength of character really shone through in those 2 hours as she kept pushing on despite the discomfort that was all too evident.
Just before the 6-hour mark, I noticed that the wind had swung around and was no longer helping her, nor was the associated swell. The decision was made to switch her to the port side of the boat at the next feed.
The port side of Viking Princess II was significantly calmer at 6 hours. Coupled with some caffeine in her feed and her active recovery over the previous 2 hours, she lifted her pace and although not to the level of hours 1-4, it was a significant gear shift which she continued to build right through to the end of the swim. We dropped down across the face of Cap Gris Nez and headed into the French coast, dodging many small fishing marker buoys in the inshore waters. Her landing point was very close to Andrew Crozier’s landing from 2 days previously, pushing in strong right to the end on the rocky French coastline.
Denyer was, as it his usual self, very philosophically observant, “She finished in 8 hours 46 minutes, an absolutely phenomenal effort, particularly considering the very dark place she had found herself in for 2 hours. More often than not, the most impressive swims are not when they are super speedy and end successfully, but when they are brutal and you watch an athlete settle in and dig themselves out.
Today, Amber Keegan achieved both of these markers.“
Keegan raised money and awareness for Surfers Against Sewage in her crossing. She explained why, “Anyone who knows me that I care a lot, about a lot of things. But for this aquatic challenge, I wanted to give back to the water and environment that has given me so much.
I have fond memories throughout childhood and adulthood of spending time in the sea, or having paddles in a stream or river on a walk…but the reality is that this simple pleasure is often no longer safe for people in the UK. As a nation surrounded by water, it astounds me that we’re not taking better care of our own aquatic playgrounds.
Water companies are literally pumping poo into our most beautiful waters, and then making sweet sweet profit. It’s disgusting, for more reason than one.
75% of UK rivers pose a serious risk to human health, with not a single stretch of river in England or Northern Ireland being in good health.
It’s contributing to huge biodiversity losses, polluting beautiful World Heritage sites, and causing people to get seriously ill.
Water companies aren’t even properly measuring their own leaks, and when they do, they often report incidents late, which stops the impact of the leak being accurately monitored. Historically, like many people, I believed we were pretty safe to swim when there wasn’t much rain, because sewage companies wouldn’t be releasing raw sewage.
Right??? Right???
Not right.
There’s sewage dumping happening even when there’s no rainfall. And the truth is, we don’t even know the full scale of the issue because water companies across the UK aren’t all obliged to report. They often fudge incidents to make them seem smaller than they are.
Surfers Against Sewage campaign for better water for all of us, including helping to protect local wild water, and working on plastic pollution, ocean recovery and the climate emergency.“
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