Extreme swimmer Stève Stievenart, nicknamed “the Seal” and specialist in Channel crossings, has succeeded in a new challenge: swimming in water 1° from Antarctica, he announced
In the company of other swimmers, the 46-year-old man, resident in Wimereux (Pas-de-Calais), swam on Saturday “one kilometer near Port Lockroy, an English scientific base, in water at 1° and outside at 0°, in a time of 19 minutes and 46 seconds”he said in a press release.
“I had a lot of fun even if (…) your hands and feet swell very quickly and it’s very painful”, he added, a few weeks after announcing that he wanted to make this crossing in an interview with AFP. Two weeks earlier, Stève Stievenart had achieved a first feat by crossing the Beagle Channel from Chile to Argentina (1.7 kilometers in 46 minutes) at the extreme south of the American continent, in water at around 8°.
His swim in Antarctica among glaciers and penguins adds to an already well-stocked track record: Stève Stievenart has crossed the English Channel, considered the Everest of open water endurance, six times, including once on a round trip, becoming the first Frenchman to achieve this, and another in winter, which had never been done before.
