Wasn’t one of my athletes so no idea I’m afraid.
He was part of the legacy - athletes allocated before I came on board. We are trying to introduce better vetting now.
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Fair play to him for keeping swimming for 20 hours. His shoulders must have been destroyed after that 
It’s a long time for everyone in the boat too
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Webb did it in 21.45. Tom Gregory (age 11) did it in 11.54. I am guessing your vetting would have turned them both down. A2A (and channel swimming in general) is a vanity project - should be 1st-come, 1st-served, with a strong disclaimer and the only criteria being that the funds clear. If you want to start introducing credible performance criteria, then no wetsuit should be #1 on the list.
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Ah, so double elitist. Those who can afford and only those who can endure the cold when already fatigued
that would pretty much rule out everyone and wouldn’t make a good business model
We’d probably have to spend more time at the coroners court too
Webb might have made the cut - who knows- but no chance for anyone under 18. The insurance costs a fortune already.
A2A is massively over subscribed.the purpose of the vetting is to try and ensure the athletes that are best prepared and can afford it are at the front of the queue. You’d be surprised how many people have a romantic view of this…it’s feking hard.
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I’d always liked the idea of it, but no way I’d be swimming after running 80 miles or so on concrete, and the cost puts me off anyway!
Interesting that fatigue affects the bodies ability to regulate temperature, I’d never really thought of that before you mentioned it before.
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Many spend their rest in Dove sweating buckets and in the worse cases we wake them regularly and get them to drink.
It’s not just the regulation as such, but it takes energy to stay warm - energy that can be better used moving forward. Many swims start at night - 7C air temp the other night - but have the benefit of swimming into the day. In June you get short night but lower sea temp, in September you get better sea temp but much longer night.
Max!s swim was night-day- night.
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back in the Pirates day we had one who thought he was the DBs at triathlon (most of us thought he was shit) who somehow got to do an A2A. He was quite a good runner so the 1st leg to Dover was OK, but he was a shit swimmer - think he got about 2 miles into the swim before jacking. Never to be seen again on the circuit - think he finally realised his ego was bigger than his ability and skulked off with his tail between his legs.
Those are the ones that need weeding out as they are a waste of everyone’s time and resource
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Often people quit not because they’ve reached their limit but because they know they will reach their limit after many painful hours and still not make France. The pilots pull swimmers too
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Your facey comment got me, he could see the cap, was over 12hrs in and you said still 5hrs to go. Sighting land must be awesome only to realise you are nowhere near must be a right kick in the balls mentally.
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We encourage swimmers not to look forward nor to look back…but you can see Dover cliffs for a long time. You can tell a swimmer is tiring where they start looking forward,
We don’t often tell them how far they have come or how far to go but to swim to the next feed. The autopilot plots boat direction and boat heading…within reason, the pilot knows how long there is to go…
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I share an office with John’s brother we have been watching him.
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Yes. Very long.
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Any message I can pass on to motivate him?
“Shark to the rear”
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lol, properly chuckling at that 
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What are the conditions like EJC how are John’s spirits?
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Spirits good. Conditions have been excellent. Chilly now. But we have a tailwind
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