Endurance Artists And Extreme Performers In The Open Water Swimming World
Courtesy of WOWSA, Huntington Beach, California.
David Blaine is described as an American illusionist, endurance artist and extreme performer.
“I think that description is a great way to define his creativity and athleticism,” observed Steven Munatones. “His feats of endurance included when he was buried alive for 7 days with only 150 mm of headroom and 51 mm of room on each side of him, when he stayed inside a block of ice in 63 hours, when he stood 30 meters up in the air for 35 hours, when he did not eat for 44 days while being suspended 9 meters in the air and tied to a gyroscope without food or water for 52 hours, and when he held his breath underwater for 17 minutes 4.5 seconds.”
This year, the open water swimming world saw a great number of its own endurance artists and extreme performers who did all kinds of incredible feats of endurance. The following athletes are just a small sampling of these extreme performers:
* André Wiersig, Attila Mányoki, Thomas Pembroke, Mariel Hawley Dávila, Nora Toledano Cadena, Elizabeth Fry, and Jonathan Ratcliffe completing the Oceans Seven
* Florian Wellbrock pulling off a Mellouli Double
* Ger Kennedy completing the Ice Sevens
* Petar Stoychev extending his dominance from marathon swimming to the ice swimming discipline
* Maarten van der Weijden swam along the entire 195 km Elfstedentocht course
* Ana Marcela Cunha raced in all four events (5 km solo + 5 km team relay + 10 km + 25 km) at the world championships
* Chloë McCardel has completed 31 career English Channel crossings to date
* Sarah Thomas swam four times non-stop across the English Channel
* Mally Richards swam his 66th annual River Mile
* Cameron Bellamy swam 151 km from Barbados to St. Lucia
* Sarah Ferguson completed a swim around 4. Easter Island
* Becca Mann swam from Maui to Molokai to Lanai to Maui in Hawaii
* Alex Kostich swam around Pitcairn Island
* Avishag Turek completed a two-way crossing of Sea of Galilee in Israel
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