Holladay locals swim the English Channel in just over 12 hours
Aug 8, 2024, 10:00 AM | Updated: 11:55 am
THE ENGLISH CHANNEL, ENGLAND - AUGUST 24: The lighthouse beams out from the Dover Port harbour wall at dawn on August 24, 2023 The English Channel, England. A group of high school friends from Holladay swam From England to France across the English Channel in a relay swim. (Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)
(Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)
LONDON — This week a group of high school friends from Holladay, Utah swam from England to France across the English Channel in a relay swim.
The group of friends took turns swimming the 21-mile-long English Channel. They began the relay on Aug. 5 and finished 12 and a half hours later on Aug. 6.
“Between the three of us… we have seven miles each to swim,” one of the swimmers, Zachary Green, said. “We each ended up swimming four legs. In a relay, you have to swim for an hour each, and then the next person in line would hop in.”
Green said the temperature of the water made the swim more difficult.
“For me, the most difficult part was the water temperature, which is in the lower 60s,” he said. “For some of our other team members, it was the jellyfish.”
Green said a jellyfish stung one of the swimmers in the face. Along with this, the team had to swim through the night, leaving them with low visibility.
Green said they wanted to challenge themselves after doing multiple challenging swims in Utah.
“My friends and I, we’ve been challenging each other for a couple of years now,” he said. “It started back in 2020 when we challenged each other to do some swims locally.”
The group has also swum across Bear Lake, Great Salt Lake, and Deer Creek.
Josuee Sanchez is a reporter for KSL NewsRadio.
