Ahead of her first nude ocean swimming race, 43-year-old Sydney mother Jo Davison was a little nervous.
She had every reason to be. Australian ocean swimmers have plenty to worry about, from avoiding stinging bluebottle jellyfish and the flailing limbs of other swimmers to the sharks known to inhabit Sydney Harbor.
And of course, the issue of achieving all of that while wearing nothing.
Photo: AFP
“This is very confronting for all of us,” Davison said ahead of plunging into the calm waters of Cobblers’ Beach, one of more than 650 people who stripped naked to take part in last month’s inaugural Sydney Skinny.
However, like many who anxiously took to the lapping waves, she emerged shortly afterwards having completed the 900m dash with her Coogee Cougars, a group of women who regularly run together for fitness, saying she felt great.
“It feels quite liberating,” she said, as she wrapped herself in a sarong.
“This is something we would never normally do ... It’s something that is outside your comfort zone. So, before, we felt very nervous, very anxious, and now that we have done it, we all feel great. It’s a one-off,” Davison added.
Davison said for her group of women it was a celebration of their bodies.
“Fortunately, we have here together a group of women whose bodies do us very proud — we’ve had children, we run together, we train together, we’re fit, we’re healthy and I think it’s time we gave our body thanks for the good bits, the indifferent bits,” she said. “But above all, it’s a celebration of us all together.”
This is just the spirit that event organizer Nigel Marsh had in mind when he had the idea to launch a nude swim which also raised money for the National Park in which is it set.
The event is not for naturists, and it is not a spectator sport, he insists.
“It’s a joyous community celebration where you are pushed slightly outside your comfort zone, and you’re made to feel better about yourself and the world around you,” Marsh said.
“It’s all ticketed, there are no spectators, no-one is going to see you. The worse that can happen is that one person sees your bare arse for one second. If you think the world is going to stop spinning because that happens, you need to get a reality check,” he added. “This is about acceptance, and all the good things in life and spreading the joy.”
Marsh says he wants to make the world a better place “one swim at a time” and hopes the Sydney event becomes an annual one that celebrates the spectacular beauty of the city.
A guitarist plays music for those disrobing and plunging into the water, some wearing flippers and one woman wearing nothing but a fake flower garland around her waist.
“It feels like a party,” Dunstan Bertschinger said.
For more experienced ocean swimmers, such as Duncan Adams, who in 2010 swam the English Channel, the Sydney Skinny is just the latest example of the explosion of ocean swimming in Australia.
“When I first started ocean swimming in 2002, there would have been 10 or 11 events across New South Wales. There 20 or 30 every week now,” he said.
At Cobblers’ Beach, swimmers emerging from the water and gratefully taking the sarongs offered by volunteers at the water’s edge, praised the event.
“You just feel free and it was lovely,” Jeanette Adams said. “There are so many people doing it with you ... It was great. Everybody just loses their inhibitions. Lot’s of fun.”
“I felt free, I felt exhilarated, it’s beautiful,” fellow participant Rod Stanley-Jones said. “Everyone should do it. It’s only once a year, so come on down next year.”
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
‘DELUSIONAL’: Targeting the families of Hamas’ leaders would not push the group to change its position or to give up its demands for Palestinians, Ismail Haniyeh said Israeli aircraft on Wednesday killed three sons of Hamas’ top political leader in the Gaza Strip, striking high-stakes targets at a time when Israel is holding delicate ceasefire negotiations with the militant group. Hamas said four of the leader’s grandchildren were also killed. Ismail Haniyeh’s sons are among the highest-profile figures to be killed in the war so far. Israel said they were Hamas operatives, and Haniyeh accused Israel of acting in “the spirit of revenge and murder.” The deaths threatened to strain the internationally mediated ceasefire talks, which appeared to gain steam in recent days even as the sides remain far
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of