Swimming the English
CHannel
OWM: What was your motivation behind doing the English Channel Crossing. Is there any specific reason you had for taking it on?
GRANT: After I do one big swim, like the Bloody Big Swim, that night I’d be seeing what more I could do. It's just something about me that says “I could have done more”. A coach put a brochure in the bag at the swim and it said “if you’d like to have a coach take you through the English Channel, sort out the logistics and coach you”. I thought there was no way I could do it myself, but if I had Chloe McCardel as my coach, then why not go do that.
So she interviewed me and somehow she thought I might be able to do it mentally and she said “alright I'll be your coach”. I was her first solo English Channel swimmers that she took on.
I kind of fell into it an opportunity that presented itself and I said “yeah I'll go do it”.
I remember the first time I met Grant Callaghan. It was about four years ago, at our usual Saturday open water group swim. When he told me that he was going to take the crossing of the English Channel, I knew their was no doubting him. As with a lot of people I’ve met through open water swimming, there is no surprise to their drive and determination to take on a challenge like this and set themselves up with the best possible chance to do something amazing. I also knew that his story to cross the English Channel would be worth sharing. Open Water Magazine(OWM) got the change to speak to Grant a couple of weeks before heading over to Western Australia to swim the Rottness Channel Swim and get the low down on taking on what a lot of people consider to be comparable to Climbing Mount Everest.
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