Channel Swimming Has Become Commonplace

Press, Volume XCVI, Issue 28368, 29 August 1957, Page 15

Channel Swimming Has Become Commonplace

“ATUCH salt water has flowed between Gris Nez and the cliffs of Dover since Captain Webb brought off his pioneering feat,” says “The Times” in a leading article. “Only one man and no women repeated it up to the first war. Since then it has been done so often and both ways that the annual. gathering of aspirants on the beaches has become as commonplace as a school of porpoises. So long as the secrets of the tides in those tricky narrows had not been mastered by swimmers, the attempt was worth while and deserving of admiration. But experience has piled up both in navigation and in the most efficient strokes, food, and protection for the body. The average good swimmer could not, of course, stand up to the great physical strain that can never be got over. For Minority

“A Channel crossing continues to be within reach of only a minority of experts in the peak of condition. Still, it is a minority that, taking the world as a whole, is now large enough to have robbed

the game of most of its excitement. “Men and women who tackle it should be reminded of Byron’s comment on Don Juan’s qualifications for getting across the Hellespont: “as once (a feat on which ourselves we prided) Leander, Mr Ekenhead, and I did.” “The names of the Leanders—and the Heros—who have swum the Channel are legion; little pride is left for the next comers. This in itself makes for dull sport. What is worse is the miasma of publicity of a vulgar kind that has spread increasingly over this hardy annual event. There have been rows about sponsoring. Accusations of being insulted have been bandied about. Solemn communiques are issued and weary boatmen let it be known that some of the swimmers are more nuisance than they are worth. Is it not time that atten-| tion was turned, in what is after! all one of the finest forms of athletic prowess, to new waters? Tedious

“The mere getting from point to point has become a tedious exercise in repetition. On the other hand, swimming as an art has never been more accomplished or better worth watching than it is today. Those who are best at it will do themselves and the relatively dry-bobs among us a power of good if they will leave the Channel to the steamers and the aircraft and the yachtsmen It has already been swum more than 90 times. Need the century be scored before close of play?”