Oldest person to swim the English Channel (male)

The oldest person to swim the English Channel is Roger Allsopp (UK, b. 6 April 1941) who crossed from Shakespeare beach, Dover, UK, to the bay of Calais, France in 17 hr 51 min 19 sec aged 70 years 4 months on 30 August 2011.

Roger Allsopp started his swim at 8 am and arrived in France just before 2 am. It was exactly 5 years to the day and at exactly the same time that Roger completed his first Channel Swim.

He swam non-stop for the entire time, receiving a sugar / energy feed every half hour – a bottle on a string which was thrown out to him, he would catch it, drink it in about 10 seconds and carry on swimming, the bottle would then be reeled back on to the boat. We communicated with him mainly with a whistle i.e. if he was getting too far or too close from the boat and at feeding time.

The water was slightly choppy when he started his swim but then it calmed down throughout the day. Unfortunately the sun never came out and the water temperature hoovered around 17 degrees. So Roger had to generate heat thus using up energy. His safety crew were on a small boat shadowing him, but huge ships and ferries kept cutting across the sea and it was very impressive to see Roger swim next to these industrial monsters.

The last 2 hours were really the toughest. First of all, it was night time therefore totally pitch black, with only the Calais lights in the distance. At this stage, Roger was really suffering and mentally finding it very difficult. Originally Roger was heading for the Calais lighthouse but because he was slowing down, he ‘missed’ the tide which meant the current pulled him away thus adding an extra 2 to 3 hours to his swim.

Roger reached the French shores at the bay of Calais just before 2 am. He was then helped back on to the boat and after a 3 hour journey arrived at the Dover marina at 5am.

Roger’s Channel swim was in aid of cancer research.