At 67, grandmother Margot Anderson could be enjoying the quiet retired life at home in England.
Instead, she works a string of part-time jobs so she can afford to be standing at the foot of a pale blue glacier in Patagonia, about to jump into near-freezing water with 53 other extreme swimmers from around the world.
“If this is the last thing I do in life, I’ll go with fullness,” said Anderson, before plunging into the frigid water off Argentina’s Perito Moreno glacier.
Photo: AFP
Anderson has made the pilgrimage to the remote region at the southern tip of South America along with her best friend, Jacqueline Cobell — who, like her, braves water temperatures of 2?C wearing nothing but an ordinary swimsuit and cap.
“My husband and two daughters think I’m mad,” said Cobell, a relatively youthful 60, who set a world record in 2010.
In northern Europe, where winter swimming is more widespread, thousands of participants commonly turn up for such events and competitions.
Photo: AFP
However, just 54 swimmers made the trek to Patagonia for Latin America’s first winter swimming festival on Aug. 8.
Cobell and Anderson laugh as they describe their training for the event: filling a bathtub with ice and timing each other with a stopwatch to see how long they can bear to stay in it.
Anderson, who has swum all her life, comes from a family of winter swimmers — her father and grandfather also practiced the sport.
Like the other seniors at the festival — in all, six swimmers over 60 took part — her face lights up when she talks about why she does it.
“Sometimes you think, ‘Why am I doing this? Why am I going in?’ But once you’re in the water and it’s you against the elements, and the challenge, it just takes over and you want to finish, you want to compete and get out and be fine,” she said.
To support her hobby, she works part-time looking after people with disabilities in Kent, England.
“I should be retired, but I have a little part-time job to pay for my swimming,” she said.
She has also worked other odd jobs ranging from swim instructor to dog groomer in order to fund winter excursions to the lakes and rivers of Russia, Finland and Estonia.
Swimming in near-freezing water can cause hypothermia or even cardiac arrest, but that does not deter those who love the sport.
They typically have no strict training regimen, said Natalia Szydlowski, an Argentine nutritionist who is writing her doctoral thesis on ice swimmers’ physical condition.
They are not professional athletes and have no special diet, but can swim 1,600m or more in air temperatures of minus-20?C.
“People say, ‘You are mad swimming in ice water,’” Cobell said.
“But after swimming in ice water, you feel accelerated and alive. You feel that you could do anything. And I think that it is good for the heart, soul and spirit,” she said. Cobell only took up competitive ice swimming five years ago.
In 2010 she set a world record: the slowest-ever crossing of the Channel from England to France.
“It took me 28 hours, 44 minutes to swim to France, without interruption,” she said with pride.
The oldest participant in the festival, 73-year-old Lech Bednarek of Poland, said he hopes more people will discover the exhilaration of the sport.
“I really hope the passion catches on in South America because every time you do it you’re reborn,” he said.
However, the star of the Patagonia festival is Henri Kaarma, who, at 39, is a spring chicken next to Bednarek.
The Estonian is the current world champion winter swimmer. He set a record swimming 2,400m in 0?C water in Siberia.
Discussing what draws him to the sport, he describes an experience radically different from his day job as a credit risk analyst in Tallinn.
“This is one thing where I am in the top of the world, I can probably say that, so why not do it when you’re one of the best?” he said. “I want to find out my limits.”
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was