Indian para-swimmer creates history by crossing the English Channel in record time

No challenge is big enough for the determined. It is a motto with which four boys from different states took up the challenge of swimming across the English Channel.

It was also a motto that helped this para-swimmer achieve the enormous feat in 12 hours and 26 minutes — a record to take on 36 km Dover Strait swim. Madhya Pradesh’s Satender Singh was accompanied by Rajasthan’s Jagdish Chandra, Chetan Raut from Maharashtra, and Rimo Shah from West Bengal. Reportedly, the team had been training for several months. 

Satender cannot walk therefore completing the stretch without using lower limbs shows determination and sheer willpower. He is the first person in India with 75% disability to complete the 36-km Arabian Sea swim in 5 hours and 43 minutes.

M Rahman Baidya of Kolkata was the first para-swimmer in the world to cross the strait of Gibraltar. He took 4 hours 20 minutes to emerge victorious on September 25, 2001.

He was also the first handicapped swimmer from Asia to cross the English Channel in 1997.