The Who’s Who of extreme swimming is gathering near the Arctic Circle to attempt a 53-mile (86 km) extreme relay across the Bering Strait.

Names familiar within the ice swimming world and well beyond will attempt the Bering Strait Swim. The relay of international swimmers was formerly known as the International Relay Swim Across The Bering Strait, but the attempt was renamed, revamped, and refinanced.

The group of ice swimmers, from Colin Hill to the UK to Ram Barkai of South Africa, from Ireland, Great Britain, USA, Russia, Estonia, Latvia, Argentina, Poland and Canada will join forces to swim from Cape Dezhnev in Chukotka, Russia, to Cape Prince of Wales in the state of Alaska, USA as they also pass by Big Diomede Island and Little Diomede Island (made famous by Lynne Cox).

The water temperature is estimated to range between 4-8°C. The committed swimmers from Ireland, Great Britain, USA, Russia, Latvia, Estonia, Poland, and Canada are listed below. Each swimmer will swim for 20 minutes at a time with an estimated 10-hour break between each swim. The swim may take 30 hours or more where each swimmer could swim up to 6 times for the planned August start date.

1. Yuri Tsiganchuk, Blagoveshchensk, Russia
2. Yuri Myagkikh, Russia
3. Vladimir Chegorin, Russia
4. Maria Chizhova, Novosibirsk, Russia
5. Elena Guseva, Russia
6. Kieron Palframan, Cape Town, South Africa
7. Ram Barkai, Cape Town, South Africa
8. Jack Bright, UK
9. Vladimir Litvinov, Blagoveshchensk, Russia
10. Oksana Veklich, Blagoveshchensk, Russia
11. Aleksandr Jakovlev, Jelgava, Latvia
12. Matías Ola, Buenos Aires /Tucuman Argentina
13. Henri Kaarma, Tallinn, Estonia
14. Toomas Haggi, Tallinn, Estonia
15. Nuala Moore, Ireland
16. Anne Marie Ward, Donegal, Ireland
17. Claudia Rose, San Diego, USA
18. Toks Viviers, Cape Town, South Africa
19. Melissa O’Reilly (‘Mo’), Lambertville, New Jersey, USA
20. Ryan Stramrood, Cape Town, South Africa
21. Colin Hill, Ambleside, UK
22. Cristian Vergara, Santiago, Chile
23. Lelané Rossouw-Bancroft, Newark, Delaware, USA
24. Rafał Ziobro, Krakow, Poland
25. Andrew Chin, Cape Town, South Africa (shown in top photo)
26. Jackie Cobell, Tunbridge Wells, UK
27. Paul Duffield, West Kelowna, BC, Canada

Note: The Bering Strait lies at 65 degrees North. The Arctic Circle starts at 66.6 degrees North.

Copyright © 2013 by World Open Water Swimming Association