 Choudhury in 2004 | |
| Personal information | |
|---|---|
| National team |  India |
| Born | 2 January 1970 Hugli, West Bengal, India |
| Sport | |
| Sport | Swimming |
| Strokes | Freestyle, Butterfly |
Medal record | |
Bula Choudhury (born 2 January 1970, Hugli, India) is an Indian former swimmer. She is an Arjuna awardee, Padma shri awardee, former India national women's swimming champion and elected as MLA from 2006 to 2011 representing Nandanpur in West Bengal state of India. [1]
Her first national competition, at age nine, she dominated her age group by winning six gold medals in six events. She continued to improve, winning various junior and national championships, as well as six gold medals at the 1991 South Asian Federation Games. She went to her first nationals, at the age of 12, which is an all-time record. This also guaranteed her a place in the relay quartet for the Brisbane Commonwealth Games as well as a prominent place on the list of Asiad probables. [2]
In 1984 she set a national 100m butterfly record of 1:06.19 sec. During the Seoul Asian Games in 1986, she created a record of 1:05.27 sec in 100m butterfly and another record of 2:19.60 sec in 200m butterfly. [3] Choudhury started long-distance swimming in 1989 and crossed the English Channel that year. She won the 81-km (50- mile) Murshidabad Long Distance Swim in 1996, and in 1999 she crossed the English Channel again. In August, 2004, she set this record by swimming across the Palk Straits from Talaimannar in Sri Lanka to Dhanushkodi in Tamil Nadu in nearly 14 hours. [3]
She became the first woman to have swum across sea channels off five continents in 2005 —including the Strait of Gibraltar, the Tyrrhenian Sea, Cook Strait, Toroneos Gulf (Gulf of Kassándra) in Greece, the Catalina Channel off the California coast, and from Three Anchor Bay to Robben Island near Cape Town, South Africa. She created a record for swimming the 30 km track in 3 hours & 26 minutes. She is now planning to establish a swimming academy in Kolkata.[ citation needed ]
Mihir Sen was a famous Indian long distance swimmer and lawyer. He was the first Asian to conquer the English Channel from Dover to Calais in 1958, and did so in the fourth fastest time. He was the only man to swim the oceans of the five continents in one calendar year (1966). These included the Palk Strait, Dardanelles, Bosphorus, Gibraltar, and the entire length of the Panama Canal. This unique achievement earned him a place in The Guinness Book of Records as the "world's greatest long distance swimmer".
Arati Saha was an Indian long-distance swimmer. She was best known for becoming the first Asian woman to swim across the English Channel on 29 September 1959 at nineteen years old. In 1960, she became the first Indian sportswoman to be awarded the Padma Shri, the fourth-highest civilian honour in India.
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Taranath Narayan Shenoy, is a deaf and visually impaired Indian swimmer and an honoree of the International Marathon Swimming Hall of Fame. He is a winner of the Triple Crown of Open Water Swimming, having successfully completed the English Channel, Catalina Channel and the Manhattan Island Marathon Swim. The Government of India awarded him the fourth highest civilian award of Padma Shri in 1990.
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Shyamala Goli also referred to as Goli Shyamala is an Indian endurance swimmer, Producer, Creative Director and Writer to the Animation Series and Movies. In March 2021, she became the second Indian woman and second woman in the world after Bula Choudhury to have crossed the Palk Strait. She completed the feat at the age of 47.
