Kings and Queen of the Channel!

It's hard to believe, but there's a man named Kevin Murphy (called "King of the Channel") who's swum the English Channel 34 times! The last time he did it in 15 hours and 14 minutes. And he traveled from the UK to participate in the award presentations at the North Bondi Classic.

In addition to recognizing the "King of the Channel", three other people who have swum the English Channel were also recognized and this included my friend Dori who had the fastest time in 2008 for swimming across the English Channel and who later this year in August 2010 plans to do a "double" which means swim across the Channel and back again

Note: Swimming the 21-mile English Channel is considered the "Everest of open-water swimming." People who swim the English Channel have to deal with very cold water (60 degrees F) and the stress of dodging sea traffic in one of the world's busiest shipping corridors. Yikes!

In this FlipVideo, Kevin shares how he was persuaded to swim the Channel and Dori talks about what was unique about her Channel crossing - she did it at night!