Dr. Chris Stockdale Talks About Enjoying The Sport On WOWSA Live
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International Marathon Swimming Hall of Fame chairman Ned Denison interviewed fellow Hall of Famer Dr. Chris Stockdale, MBE, a physician, swimmer, author and British icon on today’s edition of WOWSA Live.
The 76-year-old author of Swimming with Hero talked about a wide variety of topics:
* taking after his brother Ian at the age of 5, eventually replicating his victory in the 11U division
* starting in general practice in 1972 and then getting back into swimming after gaining too much weight
* being inspired to swim across the English Channel at the age of 34
* learning about channel swimming by reading Captain Webb and One Hundred Years of Swimming by Margaret Jarvis and Modern Long Distance Swimming by Gerald Forsberg
* starting off by swimming in smooth water on his first English Channel crossing under Force 1 conditions that gradually transformed to Force 2, then Force 3, then Force 4, Force 5 and Force 6 conditions and becoming dark, then crawling ashore on the French shore after finally feeling sand under his feet after 17 hours 30 minutes – then recalling how escort boat sank
* remembering the gathering of international channel swimmers at Sunnybank
* swimming in Lake Erie, Lake Zurich, Bay of Naples, and the 1982 Maratona del Golfo Capri-Napoli event
* cracking his rib while swimming in Italy while swimming with Albert Coward
* failing after 20 hours while swimming across Lake Ontario
* carrying on with medical contributions for the English Channel community, beginning in 1980 for 20 years
* establishing drug testing in the English Channel
* maintaining extraordinarily detailed logs of all his swims that helped him write his book and relive his swimming memories
* including the biographies of Audrey Scott and Gerald Forsberg in his book
* recalling the improvements in weather predictions in the English Channel, especially when he compares it what Reg Brickell Sr. had on his first channel crossing to what was available on Kathy Batts 22 hour 31 minute English Channel crossing in 2013
* thinking about the limits of what channel swimmers can accomplish
Dr. Stockdale humbly remembers being the inspiration for fellow International Marathon Swimming Hall of Fame Honor Swimmer Paul Asmuth:
His book Swimming with Hero is currently available on HospitalCharity.org. There are relatively few copies left.
Swimming with Hero is the autobiography of Dr Christopher Stockdale, family doctor, surgeon, marathon swimmer and long distance cyclist who donates 100% of the proceeds from this book to the Adele Francis Foundation, a part of UHB Charity.
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