Nyad, Diana
Swimming
b. Aug. 22, 1949, New York, NY
Nyad won three Florida state championships in the 100-meter backstroke during her high school years. She dreamed of swimming in the 1968 Olympics, but in 1966 she was spent three months in bed with endocarditis, an infection of the heart, and when she began swimming again she had lost her speed.
Buck Dawson, director of the International Swimming Hall of Fame in Florida, introduced her to marathon swimming later in her teens and she began training at his camp in Ontario, Canada. She set a woman's world record of 4 hours and 22 minutes in her first race, a 10-mile swim in Lake Ontario in July of 1970, finishing 10th overall.
While attending Emory University in Atlanta and Lake Forest College in Illinois, Nyad found time to train and to enter major marathon races throughout the world. In the 22-mile bay of Naples race in June of 1974, she set another women's record of 8 hours, 11 minutes.
Nyad then begin swimming solo marathons. In 1974, she attempted a two-way crossing of Lake Ontario, 32 miles in each direction. After crossing successfully in 18 hours and 20 minutes, Nyad lost consciousness on the return swim and had to be pulled out of the water.
Heavy tides ended her first attempt to swim around Manhattan Island in September of 1975, but she set a record of 7 hours and 57 minutes for the 28 miles on October 6.
Nyad announced plans to swim 130 miles from Havana, Cuba, to Marathon Key, Florida, in the August of 1977. The effort was delayed by the Cuban government. She finally set out in October but was unable to finish. However, she set a world distance record by swimming 89 miles from the Bahamas to Florida in 27 hours, 38 minutes in 1978 and a year later she made the longest swim in history, 102.5 miles from Bimini to Florida.
Nyad then retired from marathon swimming. She wrote a book about her experiences, Other Shores and she has worked as a radio, television, and print journalist.