Combined English Channel database updated to end of 2013 season now released

loneswimmer

Julian Critchlow, Vice Chairman of CS&PF & Boris Mavra, CS&PF website maven and multiple EC crossing veteran, just released the annual update of the English Channel combined database, the most extant record of English Channel swimming and beyond value to us all.

The Channel and marathon swimming community is indebted to Julian for his initiative on this some years ago. Hmmm, possible 2014 Service to marathon swimming nomination?
Hours of fun, I love this document, I only realised recently that notable Forum member @uss_lenning and I soloed the same day for example. The 1000th person to swim the Channel was in 2008. In the next 6 years inc 2014 season half that number who swam in the previous 139 years will be added. Kevin Murphy's and Alison Streeter's data alone is fascinating.

Here's Julian's usual landing page. The download link for the actual file has been updated.

Boris points out the 2013 highlights:

- 1430 individual soloists, 1897 crossings
- 105 crossings in 2013, equal highest to 2012
- 3 doubles - most ever in one year
- Average crossing time: 14h 15min - slowest since 1970
- We now have 100 individuals with 2 crossings, 167 in total with more than one crossing
- First person from Vanuatu


Have fun.

swimmer25k

Thanks for sharing. Very cool to have everyone together. I had the 968th crossing in 2001 and almost 1000 people have done it since. Amazing how the popularity has gone up. I'd like to see the number of people who have been in space and on top of Everest to make a comparison. I bet that successful swims is only a fraction of those on Everest.

danswims

5654 ascents of Everest from 1953 to 2011 are reported on a number of sites. Relatively unassisted alpine style climbs without supplemental oxygen would be far fewer.

loneswimmer

My favourite comparison is to Ironman finishers. Often touted as equivalent, there are about half a million Ironman finishers (it's hard to figure out, the Ironman Corporation didn't answer when I asked) in just over 30 years, so I had to sift a bunch of the individual websites to figure it out.

swimmer25k

loneswimmer wrote:

My favourite comparison is to Ironman finishers. Often touted as equivalent, there are about half a million Ironman finishers (it's hard to figure out, the Ironman Corporation didn't answer when I asked) in just over 30 years, so I had to sift a bunch of the individual websites to figure it out.

After your first 2.4 miles of an Ironman, you can sit down and take a break if you get tired. :-)

danswims

@Niek I'd say most of the "climbers" in recent years fit that category.