5.13 Ros Hardiman

(Available to subscribers only, episode free to play 28th March)

This guest is an incredible Para Swimmer… Ros Hardiman has spent most of her adult life in a wheelchair, having contracted Polio at age 6. She represented GB at 2 Paralympic Games and broke 8 Paralympic world records in the S7 and SB6 categories. She is an inductee into the marathon swimming hall of fame, class of 2024: having swam The English Channel in 2009 in just over 20 hours; and it is also with noting that the year prior to that in 2008, she agonisingly fell 700m short of the French coast after being in the water for over 24 hours. For that swim she was awarded the Frank Richards Endurance Award, for the most meritorious, often unsuccessful, endurance swim of the year across the English Channel… She has swam Lake Windermere (both directions), and in 2019 she crossed Loch Ness from south to north in 20 hours 10 minutes becoming both the oldest British women to swim it at the age of 67, and also as the first disabled swimmer… it was an absolute joy to chat to Ros Hardiman.