Bradshaw channelling all her efforts into New York
By Sarah Potter
June 30, 2005
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PEOPLE who want to see the Statue of Liberty from the
water usually take a boat. Julie Bradshaw is different.
Next week, Britain’s record-breaking English Channel
swimmer leaves for New York to compete for the first
time in the prestigious Manhattan Island Marathon Swim.
Since Bradshaw will be covering the 28.5-mile route
doing butterfly, another record is likely. “No
woman has completed the race using that stroke,”
she said, “but the real advantage is that, because
I’ll be breathing to the front, I’ll get
a good look at all the sights. You can’t do that
with front crawl.”
Butterfly is the most demanding stroke, but Bradshaw
is capable of swimming butterfly non-stop for 14 hours
18 minutes. That was the time of her solo Channel crossing
— about 29 miles — in 2002. “I felt
comfortable all the way through,” she said, smiling.
“I’m lucky, I don’t feel the cold.”
Mention jellyfish, though, and Bradshaw’s blue
eyes radiate panic. “The Channel is the busiest
shipping lane in the world,” she said. “The
tankers are huge, but they don’t worry me. Neither
does the seaweed or the occasional oil slick. Jellyfish,
though, are terrifying.”
The Channel relay swim last year was especially impressive,
then. “It was baking hot,” Bradshaw said,
“and there were huge amounts of jellyfish. I was
hyperventilating but if I’d stopped, it would
have been the end of the swim and I didn’t want
to let anybody down.”
Stoically selfless, Bradshaw always swims for charity.
In New York the 41-year-old is planning to raise thousands
of pounds for the Rainbow Childrens’ Trust hospice,
whose head office is near Loughborough University, where
Bradshaw is a lecturer.
Her sponsor form knows no bounds. “I also work
part-time at Leicester Prison teaching P.E. and the
inmates are brilliant,” Bradshaw said. “Word
of the swim got around and rumour has it they’re
going to have a whip-round for me.”
The fundraising has been helped by Endless Pools, which
is paying for Bradshaw’s transatlantic flight.
The American-based company manufactures a counter-current
training pool measuring only 8ft by 15ft. “When
it was installed in my garden the neighbours joked that
I’d be doing a lot of turns,” Bradshaw said.
“The pool fits into an incredibly small space
because it’s a swimmer’s treadmill. You
set the current and that’s it. No turns needed.”
Most people heat the water, but not Bradshaw. “The
colder the better,” she said. “Some of the
Channel swims I’ve done have been pretty rough
and since we’re only allowed to wear a normal
costume, you’ve got to be fairly hardy.”
The Manhattan Island swim will be blissfully warm by
comparison — an estimated 60F (16C) — but
not so in August, when Bradshaw is planning a swim in
Scotland. “We’re going to do a triple relay
crossing of Loch Ness,” she said. “Again,
this is something that hasn’t been done before,
so it’ll be a lot of fun.”
Bradshaw does not rule out another Channel swim, either.
She first conquered the blue riband event of marathon
swimming — in record time, naturally — when
she was 15 and confesses a fascination for that stretch
of water. “It’s the freedom, as much as
the challenge, that inspires me,” she said.
What she will get from swimming in the Hudson River
is a treasure trove of memories. “I have always
wanted to do this race,” she said, “so I’m
going to savour every moment. I always say to people
that where there’s a piece of open water, you
may well find me there.”
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