Extreme swimmer Stève Stievenart, specialist in Channel crossings, has succeeded in a new challenge: swimming in Antarctic water at 1°C, he announced on Monday February 26. In the company of other swimmers, the 46-year-old man, resident in Wimereux (Pas-de-Calais), swam on Saturday "a kilometer near Port Lockroy, an English scientific base, in water at 1°C and a outside at 0°C, in a time of 19 minutes and 46 seconds,” he said in a statement.
“I had a lot of fun, even if (…) your hands and feet swell very quickly and [that] it’s very painful,” he added, a few weeks after announcing that he wanted to perform this crossing in an interview with Agence France-Presse.
An already well-stocked track record
Two weeks earlier, Stève Stievenart had achieved a first feat by crossing the Beagle Channel from Chile to Argentina (1.7 kilometers in forty-six minutes) at the extreme south of the American continent, in water at around 8° vs.
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 the way there. return, becoming the first Frenchman to achieve this, and another in winter, which had never been done before.
