Lynne Cox is a bold risk-taker who has explored the far territories of human
endurance. She is the world's most extraordinary long distance swimmer and has
repeatedly proved this in the coldest and most treacherous waterways of the
world. Her natural exuberance and flair for the dramatic make her one of the
most inspiring speakers to emerge
in recent years.
Audiences cheer Lynne's heroic story and marvel at the vital lessons learned
from it. Blessed with few of the standard tools of athletic prowess, Lynne has
relied on gritty dedication and an indomitable spirit to accomplish feats that
are nearly unimaginable.
In 1971 she and her teammates were the first group of teenagers to complete the
crossing of the Catalina Island Channel in California. She has twice held the
record for the fastest crossing (men or women) of the English Channel (1972 in
a time of 9h 57 mins and 1973 in a time of 9h 36 mins. In 1975, Cox became the
first woman to swim the 10°C (50°F), 16 km (10 mi) Cook Strait in New Zealand.
In 1976, she was the first person to swim the Straits of Magellan in Chile, the
first to swim across the Skagerrak, and the first to swim around the Cape Point
in South Africa, where she had to contend with the risk of meeting sharks,
jellyfish, and sea snakes.
Cox is perhaps best known for swimming the Bering Strait from the island of
Little Diomede in Alaska to Big Diomede, then part of the Soviet Union, where
the water temperature averaged around 4°C (40°F). At the time, in 1987, people
living on the Diomede Islands, only 3 km (two miles) apart, were not permitted
to see each other, although many people had close family members living on the
other island. Even more remarkably, her accomplishment eased Cold War tensions
as Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev met in Washington, DC to jointly
congratulate her success.
Cox's most remarkable accomplishment was swimming more than a mile in the
freezing waters of Antarctica. Although hypothermia would set in most humans
inside of five minutes, Cox was in the water for 25 minutes swimming 1.06
miles. Her first book, Swimming to Antarctica, was published by Alfred A. Knopf
in 2004.
Her second book, Grayson, the true account of her encounter with a lost baby
gray whale during an early morning workout off the coast of California, was
published in 2006.
In August 2006 she swam across the Ohio River in Cincinnati from the Serpentine
Wall to Newport, Kentucky to bring attention to plans to decrease the water
quality standards for the Ohio River.
The asteroid 37588 Lynnecox was named in her honor.
