First Swim at the North Pole

Posted by Alex in Sports, Travel & Places, World Records on July 18, 2007 at 8:43 pm


Lewis Pugh took the plunge and became the first man to swim at the North Pole!

The 36-year-old Londoner spent almost 19 minutes at minus 1.8C as he front crawled for a full kilometre - more than half a mile in the coldest water a human has ever swum.

"It was like jumping into a dark black hole," he said. "The pain was immediate and felt like my body was on fire.

"I was in excruciating pain from beginning to end and I nearly quit on a few occasions. It was without doubt the hardest swim of my life."

But he said that a colleague ski-ing on pack ice alongside him looking out for hungry polar bears spurred him on.

Link - Thanks David R!


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COMMENT

10 comments to "First Swim at the North Pole"

  1. XuYu
    July 18th, 2007 at 10:29 pm

    In other news: North Pole ice ‘turns to water’

  2. sushirama
    July 18th, 2007 at 11:31 pm

    hes definitely not the 1st, maybe the 1st with out a dry suit but not the 1st.

  3. leonardo
    July 19th, 2007 at 2:27 am

    Probably the quickest kilometer swim on record.

  4. Fuzz
    July 19th, 2007 at 8:54 am

    I once swam 300m through a glacial pond on a $100 bet. . .it was the coldest thing I ever felt. My head went numb, and when I got out, every muscle in my body contracted and cramped into some of the most excruciating pain of my life. I wouldn’t recommend it. Especially since the girl welshed, and I never saw the money.

  5. Ayde
    July 19th, 2007 at 9:41 am

    Is it just me that doesn’t understand, but i KNOW that minus 1 degree Celcius is not THAT cold.
    I once swam in a lake in May (where I live, the water is freezing that time of year, but not frozen.) and it was so cold I got a brain freeze, so I got out. But it was COLD.

  6. Twitchings
    July 19th, 2007 at 9:48 am

    in other news: Mysterious warm yellow spot observed near North Pole.

  7. Dan
    July 19th, 2007 at 6:17 pm

    The northern ice may be melting, but the southern glaciers are in fact growing.

  8. Kate
    July 21st, 2007 at 9:25 am

    lol he’s not even close to being first

  9. Ratz
    July 27th, 2007 at 5:05 am

    Am I the only one to think “what an idiot”? What possible benefit can anyone get from this. It’s not even as if it’s like mountain climbing where you have the tenuous excuse “because it’s there.”

  10. Alex
    July 27th, 2007 at 11:53 pm

    So, who’s the first? Is it this guy: Wim “Ice Man” Hof?


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