As with every sport, you have records. Some records are broken on a regular basis, whenever there are viable competitions, which count towards the world and continental records. For swimming, there are plenty of categories of world records. People tend to bet on who will beat a certain record. Some do it locally, others at an online bookmaker, like NJ Online Sports Betting.
However, these, let’s call them, official categories, are different to the ones which you might find in the Guinness Book of World Records. It is quite different and people tend to love those records because the performance is often really impressive, compared to someone simply swimming back and forth in a pool. Here are the most amazing swimming Guinness world records.
Longest Distance Swimming In Relay
Back in 1979, 6 people made an amazing record of swimming for 240 hours in a swimming pool in YMCA, Newark, Ohio. The people were Matt Howard, Todd Primner, Sue Meckley, John Kocher and Matt Murphy. They swam for 755 kilometers on August 24, 1979. It was rejected at the time because it was considered to be a rested category. It has since been reinstated. The record may be broken once more, but only with a team of six, as was done previously.
First Person to Swim Beneath the Antarctica Ice Sheaths
This was a cold experience, most likely. Swimming in water which is only 0.1 Celsius is quite shocking to the human body. But not to Lewis Pugh, an open-water endurance swimmer, who is not a stranger to extreme conditions. This time, he traveled to the Antarctic and swam in a glacial river for about a kilometer. This river is located near the Novolazarevskaya Research Station in East Antarctica. The swim included an ice tunnel with ice stalactites and ended on top of a glacier, also known as a supraglacial river.
The initial decision was to swim across a supraglacial pool, a body of water above a glacier. However, things changed due to extreme chill conditions due to wind and the location. They instead decided that the swim should be done in a river, which is a bit more sheltered than a pool. The purpose of the swim was to bring attention to global warming and its effect on the frozen continent. This was done on January 23, 2020.
Pugh also holds records for the longest swim in the North Pole, a kilometer long swim, once again, but performed in 2007. He is also the first person to swim across the length of the English Channel, which was done between July 12 and August 29 in 2018.
The Oldest Person to Swim Across Loch Lomond
Kathy Baths, at 56 years and 154 days, swam across Loch Lomond, a lake in Scotland. It is a freshwater lake and Baths crossed a distance of 34.7 kilometers in 18 hours 7 minutes and 48 second on August 20 to 21 in 2016. The year after, she swam across the 32.3 Catalina Channel in 18 hours 28 minutes and 8 seconds and thus completed the Triple Crown of Open Water swimming. She had already completed the Manhattan Island Marathon Swim, a 45.9 kilometer long swim.
These are some of the world’s most interesting Guinness swimming World Records.These are only some of a plethora of such so make sure to visit the Guinness site if you want to know more.