Wenzhou swimmers brave English Channel for relay crossing

Four Wenzhou swimmers pose for a photo before heading to London. [Photo/Tide News]

Four winter swimming enthusiasts from Wenzhou, East China's Zhejiang province on July 20 left for London to take on a challenging relay swim across the English Channel.

Crossing the channel is the ultimate dream of all winter swimmers, said Xie Derong, the leader of the expedition. The four challengers plan to begin their crossing on the early morning of July 23 local time.

A 33.8-km internationally-recognized swimming route runs across the channel between Dover, the UK, and Calais, France. However, due to the currents, the actual distance varies from 50 to 60 kilometers.

"In 2019, we applied to the Channel Swimming and Piloting Federation for a relay swim and were approved that same year," Xie recalled. According to the rules, each relay team consists of four to six members and each person takes turns swimming for an hour without external aids or contact with floating objects.

The biggest challenge in crossing the English Channel is the cold seawater, which causes about 80 percent of failures. Even in summer, the average sea temperature is 13.6 Celsius. To overcome this, the Wenzhou team has been training in cold-water areas during the past six months.

Huang Xuzhao, chairman of the Wenzhou Winter Swimming Association, of which the four challengers are members, said that Wenzhou is renowned nationwide as the home of swimming. Since its establishment 41 years ago, the association has organized for 10 groups of members to cross the Qiongzhou Strait between Guangdong province and Hainan province, with 56 of them succeeding.

Source: Tide News