Pole turns into first particular person to swim 160km Baltic Sea route between Sweden and Poland

Polish swimmer Bartłomiej Kubkowski has turn into the primary particular person in historical past to swim throughout the Baltic Sea between Sweden and Poland, overlaying a distance of simply over 160 kilometres (99 miles).

On Sunday night, an exhausted Kubkowski clambered onto the seaside within the city of Dziwnów on Poland’s northern Baltic coast, round 56 hours after he had set off from Kaseberga in Sweden on Friday.

The achievement marks a private triumph for Kubkowski, for whom this was the fifth try to finish the route. His effort this 12 months has raised over 715,000 zloty (€166,000) for youngsters’s most cancers remedy to this point, with donations to his fundraiser nonetheless coming in.

During the crossing, Kubkowski was unable to sleep and, though a help boat accompanied him and offered food and drinks, he was not allowed to the touch the vessel itself.

His journey of round 160km was not far off the longest-ever steady, unassisted open-water swim ratified by the Marathon Swimmers Federation, which was the 168.3 km swum by American Sarah Thomas in 2017 in Lake Champlain, between the US states of New York and Vermont.

Kubkowski has been making an attempt to swim the route between Sweden and Poland since 2022, getting progressively nearer to reaching the purpose. Last 12 months, he got here inside 11km of the Polish coast earlier than excessive exhaustion and deteriorating climate pressured him to surrender, reported Eurosport.

However, Kubkowski, a former aggressive swimmer who now devotes himself to ultraswimming, did final 12 months handle to interrupt the world report for the longest distance swum in a swimming pool over 24 hours, after he managed to cowl 103.6 km (64.5 miles).

 

Another Polish swimmer, Karolina Szczepaniak, can be at present making an attempt to swim from Sweden to Poland alongside a barely totally different path to Kubkowski’s. At the time of writing, she is around 110km into the 172km journey, and has raised almost 400,000 zloty for charity.

Szczepaniak, a former Olympic swimmer, additionally tried the feat final 12 months, however was pressured to surrender after 57 hours amid worsening climate.

However, the 146.7km she swam set a brand new report for the longest distance coated by a feminine swimmer within the Baltic Sea and a Polish report for open-water swimming by a lady.

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Main picture credit score: b.kubkowski/Instagram