Epic swim lands award

Life may begin at 40 for some but for Ryan Stramrood turning 40 twice was one of the greatest memories he has.

Stramrood was named alongside three other South African swimmers as a winner of the World Open Water Swimming performance of the year award early this month.

Stramrood, Toks Viviers, 52, Andrew Chin, 45, and Ram Barkai, 55, braved life-threatening conditions to complete a 134km relay swim across the icy Bering Strait from Russia to the US between August 5 and August 11 last year.

The four, all from Cape Town, were among 66 swimmers from 16 countries who took on the Russian-initiated adventure, and were among the 15 who completed the challenge.

It was on this swim that Stramrood was able to celebrate his birthday twice after crossing back and forth between Russian and US waters and date lines aboard the Irtysh, a Russian military hospital ship.

"It was quite weird - today became tomorrow, but was suddenly yesterday and then tomorrow again," said Stramrood.

Even after enduring temperatures as low as 2C, Chin said, nothing could surpass the opportunity to participate in the "greatest relay challenge ever".

"The swim was more difficult psychologically than physically.

"We were prepared physically but the weather was worse than we anticipated.

"The living conditions on the ship - including confined quarters, Russian cuisine and lack of water and proper nutrition - also contributed to the challenge."

The World Open Water Swimming performance of the year award is made annually in recognition of feats that embody the spirit of open-water swimming, that are representative of the sense of adventure, tenacity and perseverance that open-water swimmers are known for, and that are judged to have been the most impressive open-water swimming performance of the year.

Stramrood described the Bering Strait swim as tough but the desire to finish and claim a world record kept the South Africans going strong until the end.

"We had the right attitude and had to keep each other going.

"We generally do challenges once-off and the relay kept us going in and out of the water, with little time to recover from the swims, but we did it."