An Australian marathon swimmer is bidding to be crowned “Queen of the English Channel” as she seeks to make history.
Chloe McCardel is chasing glory as she attempts an unrivalled 44th swim across the Dover Strait after equalling the record last week.
Setting off from France in the early hours of Wednesday, the endurance athlete has been tackling the 21 miles separating Calais from the English coast and is expected to land ashore in Dover in the afternoon.
She has said that by taking on the gruelling crossing so many times, she wants to inspire girls and show that anything is possible.
She said: “I think sometimes women don’t get recognised for their achievements as much as they should – to have female role models has been amazing for me and I really hope I can be that for other women and girls.”
The English Channel is a challenging swim, with an array of variables.
Ms McCardel holds the world record for the longest unassisted ocean swim – 124km (77 miles) from South Eleuthera Island to Nassau in the Bahamas.
She also made a non-stop triple crossing of the English Channel in 2015, which took almost 37 hours.
