What We You Doing Yesterday While A One Armed Man Tried Crossing The English Channel?

What is the sound of one arm swimming? Well, if you were around the English Channel yesterday, you might have heard it because that’s when one-armed French carpenter Olivier Desmet tried to swim it. The 56-year-old Desmet, who lost his arm in a (surely bad-ass) motorcycle accident over thirty years ago, was blown off course before he could make it over, but he doesn’t feel that the trip was a failure. Of course he doesn’t–the guy won 13 triathlons and is still alive. Everything after that is pretty much gravy nowadays.

“For me it’s a great success and not a failure”, Desmet told Reuters, despite having to give up the challenge on Monday when strong currents dragged him off his planned route.I was in tears when the captain of the boat with me made me come aboard, because I still had plenty of energy left even though I’d spent 14 1/2 hours in the water…”

Of course he did, considering the regimen he put himself through to get ready for the dip.

Desmet said he trained for eight months in a local pond and put on over 10 kilos (22 lbs) with a rigorous diet of chips and beer to build up the layers of fat needed to resist the cold Channel water.

Yeah, you call that preparing for a 22-mile run, we call it the diet we undertake after getting laid off. It’s nice to see we share something in common with such an ambitious person.
One-armed Frenchman almost makes Channel swim [Reuters]
Image [lavoixdunord.fr]