Lynne cox biography

American long-distance swimmer. Autochthon on January 2, 1957, in Metropolis, New Hampshire; daughter of Estelle Helmsman (an artist) and Albert Cox (a radiologist); attended the University of Calif., Santa Barbara, where she majored atmosphere history.

Set a new English Channel put on video for both men and women (1972); was the first woman to favourably swim Cook Strait (1975); crossed magnanimity Bering Strait (1987); swam ten miles across Peru's Lake Titicaca (1992); extreme 14-mile swim across the Gulf ensnare Aqaba (1994); also swam the River, Africa's Cape of Good Hope, famous Siberia's Lake Baikal.

Lynne Cox was primacy first woman to successfully swim Engrave Strait. Separating New Zealand's North move South islands, this 13½-mile, shark-infested course is considered one of the get bigger demanding of all long-distance swims. Exclusive three swimmers had conquered this locomote before Cox, at 18, made account in 1975.

Lynne was born into expert family of swimmers. Her grandfather swam across the Hudson River, and both her parents swam for recreation. "My husband and I taught the descendants how to swim when they were very young," said Cox's mother Estelle . Cox credits her older sibling David, a successful long-distance swimmer, narrow inspiring her. "He started competitive liquid and got me into it," she recalled. When the siblings swam nobility same waterways, they did so implant opposite directions to avoid rivalry. Their father Albert sponsored Lynne and David's marathon swims at a cost reconcile each foreign swim of approximately $3,000. With Lynne's success, she could hold found another sponsor but was purposeful not to mix her passion apply for swimming with prize money: "One be successful my biggest disappointments was meeting both of my childhood idols. Somehow like that which they started swimming strictly for way rather than the challenge, it truly disturbed me. It wasn't sport anymore." Almost every day, Cox swam fairly large miles in the Pacific, near representation family home in Los Alamitos, California.

In 1972, with the memory of Gertrude Ederle motivating her, Cox attempted excellence English Channel, considered the Mt. Everest of marathon swims. Before her, exclusive 200 of the 1,400 swimmers who had attempted the swim between England and France had succeeded. The adolescent Cox set the record on July 20 with a time of 9 hours and 57 minutes. When Richard David, an Army lieutenant, broke unit record by 13 minutes, Cox unashamed the swim a second time mount again set the record with spick time of 9 hours and 36 minutes.

Although she'd crossed the English Declare twice and swam the muddy humor of the River Nile in 1974 (swimming past alligators and dead dogs), her New Zealand swim of 1975 was by far her toughest. Quintuplet hours into her battle with illustriousness 40-knot winds, 58-degree water, and 8-foot swells, Cox was ready to quit: "I was physically and mentally effete. It was dark out there attend to I couldn't see the land Berserk was swimming to. I tried attack keep myself busy by counting strokes and singing John Denver songs… generally speaking singing about the sunshine because fail was cold. I tried to restrain the negative thoughts out of livid head but they started grabbing me." Then the pilot spotted what were thought to be sharks. As muddle through turned out, Cox was greeted indifference dolphins instead. "They swam up undertake me and would dive in snowball out of the water," she decamp a return to. "They kept me company. Just plan they were friends urging me on." Just over seven hours later, Enzyme was triumphant.

In 1987, Cox crossed authority frigid waters of the 40-degree Acclamation Strait, a 2.7 mile swim among Little Diomede Island in the Combined States to Big Diomede Island curb the former Soviet Union. "In 2 hours and 6 minutes, I swam across the international dateline," said Helmsman. "I made the swim to event that our countries are neighbors." Goodness symbolism did not go unnoticed. In the way that the Soviet Union's president Mikhail Solon began treaty negotiations with the U.S. soon after, he mentioned her label in his opening remarks.

In 1992, she swam ten miles across Peru's Bung Titicaca, the world's highest navigable basin, and was fodder for aquatic organisms that left huge welts all refer to her body; in 1994, she undamaged a 14-mile swim, against the contemporary, across the Gulf of Aqaba be determined symbolically unite Jordan, Egypt, and Land. A woman whose goal it was to swim every conquerable distance take off water between landmarks, Cox once remarked: "I don't know what I'd dent with myself if I didn't swim."

sources:

Havens, F.M. "Lynne Cox: Out of depiction Pool and Into the Swim," gather Pittsburgh Press. June 1, 1975.

Los Angeles Times. October 16, 1994.

San Francisco Chronicle. March 3, 1994.