While all those fair-weather swimmers were going for their medals in Greece, a tough Japanese school teacher swam across Lake Baikal, where the water temperature is 9-11° C (48-52° F). Interfax reports:
IRKUTSK. Aug 13 (Interfax-Siberia) – Ikarashi Ken, 52, a Japanese school teacher, successfully swam across Lake Baikal from Cape Sredny to a bay near the community of Buguldeika on the lake’s western coast in 15 hours on Thursday….
Ikarashi Ken has set several records by swimming across Pas de Calais, the 28-kilometer wide Tatar Strait, the 40-kilometer strait between Hokkaido and Sakhalin, Lake Biwa-ko in Japan, and also the straight between Korea and Japan.
via SiberianLight, who’s back to blogging again after a hiatus.