Martin Strel
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Martin Strel is a 54-year-old Slovenian marathon swimmer and is about to receive a Guinness World Record. Another one, that is, as he already has three. He swims for "peace, friendship and clean waters," and the body of water he most recently conquered is perhaps the world's most dangerous: the mighty Amazon.
He started on the path to fame by swimming his home country's 65-mile Krka river, which he did in 28 hours in 1992, and the 39-mile Kupa river, which he swam in 16 hours in 1993. He moved onto the Danube in 2000--all 1,780 miles of it. That got him his first Guinness world record, and his second came two years later, when he swam the full Mississippi River in 68 days.
He swam the Argentine Paraná River a year later, and then China's Yangtze River in 2004, finishing one day sooner than planned. Then came his most recent, and perhaps most recognized and remarkable, achievement. Starting in Peru on February 1, 2007, Strel swam the Amazon River, averaging 50 miles a day, before he reached the end of the river in Brazil 66 days later, on April 7. For those 3,273 miles, a distance longer than the width of the Atlantic Ocean, he is set to be recognized with his next Guinness World Record next week.
He had skipped over suggestions to swim the Nile because "the Amazon is much more mighty," calling the Nile "just a small creek." So he stepped up to the challenge of the Amazon, and took along escort boats to distract the meat-eating fish that were swimming the river with him. How does one distract piranhas? By pouring blood into the water, apparently.
Martin Strel and his journey through the Amazon are the highlights of Big River Man, which won a prize at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival.
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