Chapeau, Diana Nyad!

What a woman!. Diana Nyad became the first person to swim the 110 miles between Cuba and Key West, South Florida without a shark cage last weekend. This stupendous achievement, after four previous failed attempts in which more than once she was almost stung to death by jellyfish, illustrates the incredible resilience of the "weaker sex", and goes to prove the fact that as distances increase, the results of men and women begin to converge.

Her extraordinary feat also highlights the naivety of people who believe there are limits to human achievement. Who would have thought, just a few years ago, that anyone, man or woman, would be capable of such an amazing achievement? I heard a commentator on Eurosport recently, speaking during the World Athletics Championships, stating his firm belief that no one would ever run a marathon in under two hours. I imagine someone probably said, prior to 1968, that no one would ever jump over 29 feet. Then Bob Beamon came along and re-wrote the record books and forced us to re-evaluate the nature of human performance.

I was lucky enough to speak to Sir Ranulph Fiennes a few years ago, just after he and Bob Stroud trekked across the Antarctic landmass. This feat, massive in itself, was, naturally, performed during the Austral summer. I asked him about the possibility of doing the same thing during the winter, when the sun does not rise above the horizon for six months and temperatures dip to 80 degrees below zero and hurricane force winds add a further wind-chill up to 50 degrees.
"Nobody's ever done it", he replied, "And nobody ever will".
Twenty years on and no one has yet contradicted him. But can we really be sure that some day, an intrepid team (I've got it in my mind they will be Japanese or Chinese), superbly equipped and resourced, won't do just that? When it comes to human beings, never say never...