LYNNE COX has set records all over the world for open-water swimming. She was named a Los Angeles Times Woman of the Year, inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame, and honored with a lifetime achievement award from the University of California, Santa Barbara. She is the author of Swimming to Antarctica, which won an Alex Award. She lives in Los Alamitos, California.
PRAISE FOR SWIMMING TO ANTARCTICA
"This would make a great story even if Cox couldn't write. But she
can . . . She's done things the rest of us only imagine-and she's
written a book that helps us to imagine them with clarity and
wonder." -THE BOSTON GLOBE "What emerges here is an athlete whose
determination is so fierce that it seems almost exotic. She is fit.
She is focused. She is Lance Armstrong with body fat."-USA TODAY
"More than the story of the greatest open-water swimmer, Swimming
to Antarctica is a portrait of rare and relentless drive . . .
Cox's understated style makes for gripping reading."
-SPORTS ILLUSTRATED
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Cox, one of the world's leading long-distance swimmers, has been a risk-taker ever since she was nine and chose the freezing water of a New Hampshire pool in a storm over getting out and doing calisthenics. After her family moved to California so she and her siblings could train as speed swimmers, she discovered long-distance ocean swimming. Her first open-water event, a team race across the Catalina Channel, convinced her to train for the English Channel. At 15, she broke the Channel record, and decided she needed a new goal. Up to this point, Cox's story reads like a fairy tale of hard work, careful planning and good support, crowned with success. It isn't until she competes in the Nile River swim that the tale turns ugly-she's swimming in raw sewage and chemical waste, fending off the dead rats and broken glass, so sick with dysentery she lands in the hospital. Undeterred, she plans more ambitious swims-around the shark-infested Cape of Good Hope, across Alaska's Glacier Bay-to prepare for her big dream, a swim from Alaska to the Soviet Union across the Bering Strait. While offering herself to researchers studying the effects of cold on the human body, her political goals are even larger: to bring countries and peoples together, using swimming "to establish bridges between borders." Cox ends her story with her swim to Antarctica, where she finishes the first Antarctic mile in 32-degree water in 25 minutes. Even though readers know she survived to tell the tale, it's a thrilling, awesome and well-written story. (Jan.) Forecast: Knopf plans lots of media for this inspirational book, including a nine-city author tour, a profile in Biography magazine, an appearance on NPR, ads in USA Today and features in women's, sports and travel magazines. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
PRAISE FOR SWIMMING TO ANTARCTICA
"This would make a great story even if Cox couldn't write. But she
can . . . She's done things the rest of us only imagine-and she's
written a book that helps us to imagine them with clarity and
wonder." -THE BOSTON GLOBE "What emerges here is an athlete whose
determination is so fierce that it seems almost exotic. She is fit.
She is focused. She is Lance Armstrong with body fat."-USA TODAY
"More than the story of the greatest open-water swimmer, Swimming
to Antarctica is a portrait of rare and relentless drive . . .
Cox's understated style makes for gripping reading."
-SPORTS ILLUSTRATED
--
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