Limbless swimmer completes quest to link continents

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A French swimmer who lost all four limbs in an electrocution accident has completed a swim that linked five continents.

Using tailor-made flippers, Philippe Croizon braved strong currents and near-freezing temperatures in a roughly four-kilometre swim between the US island of Little Diomede and Big Diomede in Russia that he said took about one hour and 20 minutes.

In the past three months he has swum between Papua New Guinea and Indonesia to link Oceania with Asia, across the Red Sea to link Africa to Asia and across the Strait of Gibraltar between Europe and Africa.

Mr Croizon had all four limbs amputated in 1994 after being struck by an electric shock of more than 20,000 volts as he tried to remove a TV antenna from a roof.

"This was the hardest swim of my life, with a water temperature of four degrees Celsius and strong currents," Mr Croizon said after reaching the Russian island.

The 44-year-old was accompanied by long-distance swimmer Arnaud Chassery, 35.

Since May the pair have swum across three other straits separating the continents and Friday's was the last.

They plunged through the ocean up to the limit of the territorial waters separating Russia and the United States, and then continued a few hundred metres into Russian waters to enter Asia.

The men arrived on Alaska's Little Diomede island in a fishing boat last Sunday but their swim was held up for four days because of a powerful storm with winds of up to 140 kilometres an hour.

Mr Croizon said his accomplishment was a message of encouragement to other disabled people.

"I tell them everything is possible, everything can be done when you have the will to go beyond yourself," he said....

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