Inspiring stories on other sites

Many of the links below come from channel-triathlon.com by Vasanti Niemz and Karteek Clarke's personal site http://www.karteekclarke.com

Leading EC solo crossings (all non wetsuit)

Karteek Clarke (Scotland) - 11 solos
Vedika Bolliger (Switzerland) - 5 solos, including 1 EC triathlon Dover-Paris, plus 1 relay (6 p.)
Vasanti Niemz (Germany) - 2 solos, including 1 EC triathlon Dover-Aachen, plus 2 relays (6/4 p.)
Angikar Djordjevic (Serbia) - 2 solos, including 1 EC triathlon Dover-Heidelberg, plus 1 relay (5 p.)

Inspiring Stories

Swimming from Europe to Africa II - Strait of Gibraltar, Abhejali Bernadova, Sept. 2013
"Determination wins the day" - Channel veteran and dedicated helper Karteek Clarke writes about Adriano Passini's English Channel swim of July 27, 2013 on his blog; video-interview with Adriano
Swimming from Europe to Africa I - Strait of Gibraltar, Vasanti on her blog, Oct. 2012
Sri Chinmoy inducted into the International Marathon Swimming Hall of Fame (IMSHOF) at the Global Open Water Swimming Community (Vasanti's blog or on Channel swimming news) - Sept. 2012, Queen Mary, Long Beach, California
June 2013, Manhattan Island Marathon Swim, N.Y., by Abhejali, video
Abhejali Bernardova swims the English Channel in 2011 (video at Sri Chinmoy TV)
On Sept. 21st, 2010, the first all boys English Channel relay from our team was successful: in 13 hours 41 min. their 5-member-team reached France, including Angikar from Serbia, who had just done a solo on August 8th/9th, 2010, in over 19 hours. More info on their blog...
Channel-Triathlon Dover-Calais-Brussels-Aachen, Sept. 3-6, 2010: Almost to the day 25 years after her first EC solo swim Vasanti Niemz, at age 53, completed her first "Self-transcendence" Channel Triathlon, "short distance" to Aachen (EC solo non-wetsuit, 300 km bike, 85 km run). Her goal for the future is still Dover-Heidelberg. Vasanti was the first SCMT member to swim the English Channel in 1985. Vedika (5x EC solo) was the first Sri Chinmoy Marathon Team member to do a Channel Triathlon Dover-Paris back in 1996, when she swam her 2nd solo and then continued to bike and run to Paris. Read Vasanti's triathlon blog about her first EC-triathlon attempt in 2008 and her successful Dover-Aachen EC triathlon in 2010 with many useful links to other related websites.
2nd EC relay: On Sept 30th, 2009, an international relay team of 4 female SCMT members from Czech Republic, Iceland and Germany swam from Dover to France in 13 hours 21 min., dedicating their swim to international peace, friendship and harmony and lighting the torch of the World Harmony Run or Peace Run on French sands. Read the story ... (see slide-show)
Vasanti Niemz and Adiratha Keefe were the first two members of the SCMT to complete the channel crossing in 1985; Sri Chinmoy composed songs for both of them in his native Bengali in tribute to their achievements. Read the lyrics to Vasanti's and Adiratha's songs on srichinmoysongs.com...

Race stories - more articles

About the author:

Nirbhasa is from Ireland. He is an enthusiastic multi-day runner, having completed four times the Sri Chinmoy Self-Transcendence 3100 Mile Race - the longest race in the world.

Abhejali Bernardova from the Czech Republic completed the swim from Robben Island to Cape Town in South Africa. Stacey Marsh was assisting her from the boat and gives this account:

Marathon Team founder Sri Chinmoy visits Robben Island in 1996. Sri Chinmoy met Nelson Mandela and the two had a warm mutual admiration.

This was one of the shortest swims Abhejali has done, but one of the toughest. The ‘Freedom Swim’ as it is know, is the swim from Robben Island - where President Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for 18 years of his 27 years of imprisonment - to Blougberg in Cape Town. It’s a ‘short’ 7.5km swim in shark infested COLD water.

Abhejali arrived with a window of a week to find the perfect conditions to swim. In preparation for the expected 13 degree water Abhejali had been trying her best to do cold-water swims in an already cold Czech winter.

We arrived in Cape Town on Thursday to find the water temperature slightly less than ideal at 11 degrees! Not fazed by this Abhejali soon jumped in and spent a good half hour catching waves and doing some swimming to see how her body will cope with the decrease in temperature. That evening someone who had swam this many times, informed us it probably was not going to get any warmer over the next few days. And looking at the weather charts Saturday seemed the most ideal time to do it.

As the day approached, each person we contacted to confirm Abhejali was going to try on Saturday gently asked if we knew it would be extremely cold, and that no one else would be swimming it that weekend! After a brief pause to take note of all the warnings, Abhejali decided to continue a Saturday swim. The day arrived, the conditions looked good, and we made our way to the start. Our pilot gave Abhejali a stern talking to, telling her it would be tough — the distance may be small, but this swim is a hard one, and with these water temperatures it would be nearly impossible for anyone to finish.

As she jumped in to start her swim, our pilot radioed ahead to let them know someone had started, not giving a predicted finish time, as he privately expected he would have to pull her out. He noted that the temperature had dropped to 9.5 degrees — where it stayed for about half the distance — a detail we decided not to pass onto Abhejali. As she progressed she complained of cold and numb feet. Our pilot said that was a good sign — if she could not feel them it would be bad. Abhejali couldn’t talk much as her throat and mouth were too cold, but still managed to yell instructions to us from time to time — another good sign!

When Abhejali reached the 5km mark, we could see she was still strong. We relaxed a little, realising she might actually be able to finish! Our pilot was getting more confidence in her as she continued swimming strongly and even picked up the pace a little.

However, as we got closer to the shore she started to go ‘walkabout’ — instead of staying with the boat she started to swim sideways, parallel to the shore. At that angle she was going she was heading straight for rocks 800 metres from shore. We pulled her back on course, and as the boat could not go any further, I was told it was time to jump in and try and guide her to the shore. With strict instructions from the pilot and a buoy full of warm clothes and a hot drink for her, I headed into some freezing cold water.

It was tough keeping up with her even this late in the swim but she was now in the correct orientation as we made it into the shore. With large waves pushing us in, she landed on dry land 2 hours 35 minutes after starting on Robben Island.

In the lead up to Abhejali’s swim in Cape Town she was invited to speak to students at a primary school in Johannesburg — a school visited by the Sri Chinmoy Oneness-Home Peace Run in 2015. The Principal loves the Peace Run so much he invited anyone from the Peace Run who visits South Africa to come to his school and speak to the students. He was thrilled to hear Abhejali was coming to do the Robben Island swim, and jumped at the chance for the students to hear the motivation behind her long-distance open-water swimming.

The students congregated after lunch, loudly talking and giggling as they arrived. However when we started chatting with them before the talk, they fell silent, and shushed each new group of students arriving, so as not to miss a word. Abhejali spoke for about half an hour, showed videos of her swims and answered many questions. As the students made their way back to class, some hung back to talk some more with us. When they saw the Principal they quickly turned to leave, but he was happy they wanted to ask more questions; he told them they could stay and speak with us for as long as they liked. Students told us what they had learned from her talk: never give up; go after your dreams; nothing is impossible.

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About the author:

Nirbhasa is from Ireland. He is an enthusiastic multi-day runner, having completed four times the Sri Chinmoy Self-Transcendence 3100 Mile Race - the longest race in the world.

Abhejali Bernardova, who swum the channel in 2011 and is currently pursuing the 'Oceans Seven' list of the world's seven most challenging swims, talks about what she gets out of challenges such as swimming the English Channel, how she started doing it in the first place, and how the inner peace she gets from her meditation practise helps her through the hard times. As she says: "its a great achievement on the outer plane, but for me, its about getting to know myself better. When you are in your comfort zone, you don't need to bring forward your best capacities. So the self-transcendence on the physical plane brings a transcendence on the inner plane, in that you are trying to be the best person you can be."

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