Ross Edgley - #GreatBritishSwim

artik · Joined: 31 Dec 2007 Posts: 547 Location: Lincs UK

Whisk - You are wrong - many people embraced into the Great British Swim and enjoyed every vlog and update and consider his achievement to be a real inspiration in making the impossible possible.
I for one have loved every minute of his journey. Like many of these things, it snowballs and inspires people to do new things and things they never dreamed they could do. I Look forward to his next exploit.

Chrace · Joined: 28 Apr 2010 Posts: 2910 Location: Eating a Yorkie

Same here, I'm well impressed he made it - and proven wrong thinking he wouldn't.

I followed the start and definitely thought he'd pack it in when it became apparent he wouldn't make the 100 days at all. Kudos to him to follow through and actually carry on (and I guess Red Bull to keep financing it).
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PCP · Joined: 13 Oct 2012 Posts: 2005 Location: Manchester

SGreg · Joined: 30 Jun 2010 Posts: 1112 Location: High Peak

TBH I am still a doubter.

While sitting on a boat for 160days while having a swim in cold rough water every day for long periods is undoubtedly brutal, and I give him full respect for that, Without GPS Data I simply don't believe he has swum around Britain.

It's so cheap and easy and would have helped enormously with PR and keeping people hooked. If EVERY swim had been Strava'd, if every meter swam had been digitally recorded, it would have carried ultimate credibility and pushed the PR through the roof. Not to mention potential extra sponsor money from Garmin/Sunnto or Strave etc...

To not do so simply implies they had something to hide. That exact (or even approx) start and finish locations were not adhered to and large parts of this "swim" were aboard the boat.

When someone's job is PR and Media and Generating sponsor revenue, there has to be a very good reason for ignoring this avenue!!! Can anyone seriously suggest in this world of Social Media and digital footprints this was not discussed in the plans, and subsequently left out intentionally?

And if so for what reason other than to cheat?

Willing to listen to any theories on this, but if everything is above board why not digitize it? This is not some old school swimmer who just isn't into that kind of thing, this guys JOB is social media!

Whisk · Joined: 09 Jun 2005 Posts: 8739 Location: London

This story featured on HIGNFY last week. He got a lot of stick from Paul Merton for the fact that he wasn't in the water continuously for the attempt Rolling Eyes

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Gus · Posted: Tue Nov 13, 2018 11:24 am Post subject:

I'm also a little in two minds about this.

What he did was absolutely phenomenal and deserves a huge amount of respect - firstly for the sheer physical achievement and secondly for the motivation to push the boundaries like this.

However, as above, I'm slightly suspicious that, in fact, he might've just quietly missed bits out here and there or done the old 'tidal drift' that our Atlantic swimming friend enjoyed. If you're attempting something like this and with the easily availability of GNSS technology and online tracking etc. I would've thought it fundamental to the whole challenge.

It's absence makes me wonder if the omission was deliberate.

Shame because it does detract from an amazing achievement even if he did skip bits.
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Buzz_ · Joined: 19 May 2007 Posts: 453

It will be interesting to see if this gets recognised by Guinness World Records or some such organisation. Don't they normally insist on either being present in person, or seeing fairly detailed logs to verify a record.

I'm sure there are people on here who can comment on the requirements.

explorerJC · Joined: 20 Oct 2005 Posts: 16060 Location: Farthingstone