Photo above shows International Swimming Hall of Fame and International Marathon Swimming Hall of Fame dual inductee Michael Read at the 16 km Faros Maratón professional marathon swim in Croatia in 2015. In 1950, when Hassan Abdel Rehim from Egypt won the Daily Mail race across the English Channel in a record time of 10 hours 50 minutes, there were 205
Bikinis and board shorts. Sunglasses and funny hats. These are usually not the attire of competitive open water swimmers. However, Polar Bear Swims change the normal open water swimming equation. Thousands of people gather at the shorelines around the world, often to enjoy a dip in relatively or extremely cold water and donate some money to charitable
Mary Williamson won a contest for the "most perfect specimen of English womanhood" at the age of 19. That contest, organized in 1913, led within months to her marriage to the contest's organizer Bernarr Macfadden. Mary was one of the top swimmers of her generation, winning dozens of swims in her native England. The attraction between the two could have
