Martin Strel - Swimming History

Swimming History

Strel was born in the town of Mokronog, in the Slovenian region of Lower Carniola, then part of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Strel's first two river swims were the Krka river (105 km) in his homeland, in 28 hours in 1992, and the boundary Kolpa river (62 kilometres (39 mi)), in 16 hours in 1993. In 2000, he swam the Danube River (2,860 kilometres (1,780 mi)) and achieved the world long distance swimming record (3,004 kilometres (1,867 mi)) in 58 days. In July 2001, he achieved one more world record — 504.5 kilometres (313.5 mi) of non-stop swimming in Danube within 84 hours and 10 minutes.

In 2002, he swam the entire Mississippi River (3,885 kilometres (2,414 mi)) in 68 days. In 2003, he swam the Argentine Paraná River (3,998 kilometres (2,484 mi)). On 10 June 2004, Martin started swimming down the Yangtze River (4,003 kilometres (2,487 mi), the longest river in Asia, the third longest in the world) in China. He reached Shanghai in 40 days on 30 July 2004, one day before planned.

Strel swam the Amazon River, commencing on 1 February 2007, finishing 66 days later on April 7, 2007. This was a record-breaking distance of 5,268 kilometres (3,273 mi), longer than the width of the Atlantic Ocean. He had escort boats that were prepared to pour blood into the river to distract meat-eating fish such as piranhas.

In 2007, the Nile had been proposed as his next river, but Strel said, "I am not going to do the Nile. It's long but not challenging enough, it is just a small creek. The Amazon is much more mighty."

He plans to swim across Lake Arenal on September 29, 2010 as part of his visit to an environmentalist international film festival in Costa Rica. He plans to swim about 6 kilometres from shore and then back to his starting point.

In June 2011 Strel completed his Colorado River Swim challenge for the documentary Stan Lee's Superhumans More about the swim can be found at: Colorado Swim 2011.