Lynne Cox

Lynne Cox (2012)

Lynne Cox (* 1957 in Boston ) is an American long-distance swimmer and author .

Swimming history

In 1971 she and her teammates became the first group of teenagers to swim across the approximately 45 km wide Santa Catalina Canal in California .

Twice Cox achieved the shortest time to swim the English Channel from England to France: on July 20, 1972 at 9:57 and on August 10, 1973 at 9:36.
In 1975, Cox was the first woman to swim the Cook Strait , which is just 10 ° C and 22 kilometers (13.7 miles) wide, between the North and South Islands of New Zealand .

In 1976, the extreme athlete was the first person to swim the Strait of Magellan on the southern tip of Chile . She then overcame the Öresund between Denmark and Sweden and the Skagerrak between Sweden and Norway and covered an eight-mile stretch in the water around Cape Point in South Africa , where she had to reckon with the danger of sharks , jellyfish and sea snakes .

Cox is best known for a difficult undertaking carried out on August 7, 1987: She crossed the Bering Strait from the Alaskan island of Little Diomede to the island of Big Diomede , which was then part of the Soviet Union (now Russia ) - in a strait where the water temperature is average 4 ° C. Although many residents of the Diomedes Islands had family members who lived on the other island, they were denied permission to see their relatives, who lived only three kilometers (two miles) apart at that time. It was all the more remarkable at a time of Cold War tension when US President Ronald Reagan and Secretary General Mikhail Gorbachev joined forces in Washington, DC to congratulate Lynne Cox on their performance.

In 1988 she became the first woman to swim across Lake Baikal .

In 1992 she was the first woman to cross Lake Titicaca .

Another special Cox achievement in 2002 was swimming in the ice-cold water of the Antarctic . Cox was in the freezing water for 25 minutes, swimming 1.06 miles from the ship to the harbor.

Publications

Lynne Cox has published several books. The first “Swimming to Antarctica” (German: “Die Eismeerschwimmerin”) was published in 2004, the second “Grayson” (German: “The small whale”), which deals with an encounter with a baby gray whale , was published in 2006. Both also appeared in German. Lynne Cox was invited to speak at events.

Honors

In 2000 she was inducted into the international swimming pool 's hall of fame .

In 2005 the asteroid (37588) Lynnecox was named in her honor.

literature

Lynne Cox: Swimming to Antarctica . ISBN 0-15-603130-2
Lynne Cox: Grayson . ISBN 0-307-26454-8
Lynne Cox: South with the Sun: Roald Amundsen, His Polar Explorations, and the Quest for Discovery . ISBN 978-0307593405
Lynne Cox: The Arctic Swimmer . ISBN 978-3-89405-296-6
Lynne Cox: The Little Whale . ISBN 3-7645-0233-9

Web links

Lynne Cox in the International Swimming Hall of Fame (English)
CBS News about swimming in the Antarctic (English)
Official homepage of Lynne Cox (English)
“Oh my god, that's liquid ice!” , Autobiographical report on crossing the Bering Strait for one day

Individual evidence

↑ In the opposite direction, only one person was faster before the first crossing by Cox (1972): Barry Watson in 1964 with 9:35 h towards England, a time that Cox did not reach even with her faster second crossing, but exceeded it by 1 minute. In the direction of France on August 20, 1972 Richard Davis Hart was 9:44 faster than Cox a month earlier. Cox regained Hart's directional record in 1973.

personal data
SURNAME	Cox, Lynne
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	American long-distance swimmer and author
DATE OF BIRTH	1957
PLACE OF BIRTH	Boston

[1] In the opposite direction, only one person was faster before the first crossing by Cox (1972): Barry Watson in 1964 with 9:35 h towards England, a time that Cox did not reach even with her faster second crossing, but exceeded it by 1 minute. In the direction of France on August 20, 1972 Richard Davis Hart was 9:44 faster than Cox a month earlier. Cox regained Hart's directional record in 1973.