Petar Stoychev was interviewed by Bulgarian television B SPORT presenter Zlatimir Yochev yesterday. The 47-year-old International Swimming Hall of Fame and International Marathon Swimming Hall of Famer Honor Swimmer explained his recent 9 hour 30 minutes crossing of the Tsugaru Channel in northern Japan.

Watch his B SPORT TV interview here where Stoychev talks about the thin sliver of opportunity between two typhoons when he completed the Oceans Seven and the Oceans Grand Slam.

During the calm between two typhoons that was preceded by a 7.1 magnitude earthquake* off the eastern coast of Japan, Stoychev not only battled with swirling, unpredictable current, but also was visited by at least one whale and a pod of dolphins. He started off fast, finishing the first half of the channel in 3 hours 10 minutes, but the second half took him 6 hours 20 minutes to get to Hokkaido.

Now he is off to the English Channel in an attempt to complete the 7 channels of the Oceans Seven within 6 months, a nearly unfathomable feat of endurance and logistics.

* When Stoychev arrived in Tokyo from serving on the Technical Swimming Committee of World Aquatics at the 2024 Paris Olympic Games, he was initially worried about earthquakes and tsunamis – as was the entire country when the Japanese government issued its first mega quake advisory after a powerful magnitude 7.1 earthquake struck off the southeastern coast of Japan. The announcements frightened its citizens across the country – and his escort pilots Captain Hashimoto and Captain Akimoto (shown below), handler Ivan Zlatinov, and his support crew of Masayuki Moriya of Ocean Navi and Steven Munatones.

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