Personal information | |
---|---|
Born | 1976 (age 48–49) Eltham, Greater London, Great Britain |
Sport | |
Sport | Swimming |
Thomas Gregory (born 9th October 1976) swam the English Channel in 1988 at the age of 11 years and 333 days. As of 2025 [update] he still holds the record as the youngest person to have done so. [1]
No one will take the record from him because the Channel Swimming Association has since set an age limit of 16 years for officially recognised crossings. [2] The age limit was introduced in November 2000.[ citation needed ]
Gregory's coming-of-age story about being the youngest person to swim the Channel, A Boy in the Water (2018, Penguin: ISBN 9780241354124) was joint winner of the 2018 William Hill Sports Book of the Year. [3] It was BBC Radio 4's Book of the Week in August 2018. [4] He served in the Royal Anglian Regiment of the British Army. [5] [6]
World Aquatics, formerly known as FINA, is the international federation recognised by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) for administering international competitions in water sports. It is one of several international federations which administer a given sport or discipline for both the IOC and the international community. It is based in Lausanne, Switzerland.
Gertrude Caroline Ederle was an American competition swimmer, Olympic champion, and world record-holder in five events. On August 6, 1926, she became the first woman to swim across the English Channel. Among other nicknames, the press called her "Queen of the Waves".
Florence May Chadwick was an American swimmer known for long-distance open water swimming. She was the first woman to swim across the English Channel in both directions, setting a time record each time. She was also the first woman to swim the Catalina Channel, the Straits of Gibraltar, the Bosporus, and the Dardanelles.
Lynne Cox is an American long-distance open water swimmer, writer, and speaker. She is best known for being the first person to swim between the United States and the Soviet Union, in the Bering Strait, a feat which has been recognized for easing the Cold War tensions between U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.
Dana Whitney Vollmer is a former American competition swimmer, five-time Olympic gold medalist, and former world record-holder. At the 2004 Summer Olympics, she won a gold medal as a member of the winning United States team in the 4×200-meter freestyle relay that set the world record in the event. Eight years later at the 2012 Summer Olympics, Vollmer set the world record on her way to the gold medal in the 100-meter butterfly, and also won golds in the 4×100-meter medley relay and 4×200-meter freestyle relay. She won three medals including a gold at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.
Dr. Vicki Keith Munro, CM, O.Ont, LLD, ChPC is a Canadian retired marathon swimmer, coach and advocate for disabled athletes. Her accomplishments include the first crossing of all five Great Lakes, a 100-hour swim and the world record distance of 80.2 kilometers swum using the butterfly stroke. Many people consider Keith as the face of marathon swimming.
Susan Jean Maroney is an Australian former marathon swimmer.
The Rottnest Channel Swim is an annual open water swimming event from Cottesloe Beach through Gage Roads to Rottnest Island, off the coast of Western Australia, near Perth.
Lewis William Gordon Pugh, OIG, is a British-South African endurance swimmer and ocean advocate. Dubbed the "Sir Edmund Hillary of swimming", he is the first person to complete a long-distance swim in every ocean of the world, and he frequently swims in vulnerable ecosystems to draw attention to their plight.
Harold Thompson Mann was an American competition swimmer for the University of North Carolina, a 1964 Tokyo Olympic 4x100-meter medley swimming gold medalist, and a world record-holder in the 100-meter backstroke. After graduating pre-med from North Carolina, he went to the medical school of Virginia, and completed a residency and practice in San Francisco. In 1984 he returned to his home state to establish a practice in internal medicine in the greater Richmond area.
The Oceans Seven is a marathon swimming challenge consisting of seven open water channel swims. It was devised in 2008 as the swimming equivalent of the Seven Summits mountaineering challenge. It comprises the North Channel, the Cook Strait, the Molokaʻi Channel, the English Channel, the Catalina Channel, the Tsugaru Strait and the Strait of Gibraltar.
Katrina Diane Radke Gerry is a former competitive swimmer who represented the United States at the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, South Korea.
Linda Carol McGill, also known by her married name Linda Kruk, is an Australian former competition swimmer noted both for achievements at the Commonwealth Games and in long-distance swimming. At age 30, McGill set a record for the fastest and only swim around Hong Kong Island which stood for over 40 years, and still holds the record for the fastest swim in a counterclockwise direction.
Bhakti Sharma is an Indian Open water swimmer.
Caeleb Remel Dressel is an American competitive swimmer who specializes in freestyle, butterfly, and individual medley events. He swims representing the Cali Condors as part of the International Swimming League. He won a record seven gold medals at the 2017 World Aquatics Championships in Budapest, nine medals, six of which were gold, at the 2018 World Short Course Swimming Championships in Hangzhou, and eight medals, including six gold, at the 2019 World Aquatics Championships in Gwangju. Dressel is a nine-time Olympic gold medalist and holds world records in the 100 meter butterfly, and 100 meter individual medley.
Rupali Ramdas Repale, is an Indian open-water long-distance swimmer and triathlete. She swam the English Channel in the solo swim category on 15 August 1994 in a time span of 16 hours and 7 minutes, making her the youngest successful swimmer to cross the English Channel for the year 1994. She swam a total of seven straits during the course of her swimming career, Gibraltar Strait, Palk Strait, Bass Strait, Cook Strait, Robben Island Channel and Mumbai-Dharamtar Channel.
Ross Edgley is a British athlete, ultra-marathon sea swimmer and author. He holds multiple world records, but is perhaps most recognised for completing the World's Longest Staged Sea Swim in 2018, when he became the first person in history to swim 1,780 miles (2,860 km) around Great Britain, in 157 days In 2024, he also became the first person in history to simultaneously hold official Guinness World Records for long-distance swimming in the sea and river when he broke the record for the longest non-stop, continuous river swim down the Yukon River.
Sarah Thomas is an American marathon swimmer. She is the first person to complete four consecutive crossings of the English Channel and the first person to swim a current-neutral swim over 100 miles. She holds the world record for longest, second-, and third-longest current-neutral swims, and various other records in both fresh and salt water categories.
Rebecca Wilke Mann is an American open water swimmer and writer.