OPEN WATER HEROES
Mike Oram (leſt ) and Petar Stoychev
on the lat er's sub- seven-hour crossing
THE COACH: Freda Streeter A formidable force on the Dover swimming scene, where she's known as The General, 73-year-old Freda Streeter has spent a large part of the last 30 years standing on a beach barking instructions at Channel at empters, and she shows no signs of stopping yet. A swimming teacher and local club coach for decades, Streeter
fi rst became involved with the Channel Swimming Association in 1982 when her daughter Alison wanted to swim the Channel. When Alison’s coach emigrated to Australia, Streeter felt she had no alternative than to coach her daughter herself, and the rest is history. Although Alison – who still holds the record for the most Channel crossings with a massive 43 – is no longer involved in Channel swimming, her mother has stayed on as the offi cial CS&PF training advisor, driven by a wish to help swimmers succeed. "I love helping people acheive their dreams," she says. “It’s a
life-changing experience for them. The words ‘Channel swimmer’ on a CV makes it stand out from everyone else’s. I have trained many swimmers who have moved on to very good, well-paid jobs because of it.”
THE PILOT: Michael Oram A man with many hats, the 64 year old chairman of the CS&PF – the organisation he helped to found in 1998 – is also principal of Dover Sea School, liaison offi cer with the British and French coastguard authorities, and has been a Channel swimming escort pilot for the last 29 years, with more than 600 crossings under his belt. He describes himself as a “boaty person”, and has a number of sailing and yachting businesses, which his wife Angela and two sons (who are also pilots) help with. He’s “been involved in just about anything that fl oats” – from teaching boat skills to organising at-sea shoots for production companies, as well as being a keen swimmer (although he’s never at empted the Channel), deep-sea diver and fi sherman. Keeping so many plates spinning can be exhausting, Michael admits. Especially as a pilot, there's a lot to keep organised. “There’s no such thing as a typical day in Channel swimming,” he explains. “Our job is safety and guidance but we usually have to give a lot more than the basic input.” Not only are pilots reliant on tides and times, weather and wind, but they must work with the swimmer’s own “rarely accurate” estimates of their speed and ability, and then coordinate the swimmer, their passport, the crew, permissions, paperwork, foreign authorities and navigation over the Channel. Exhausting! One of the most diffi cult parts of his job is deciding if and when to abandon a crossing at empt. “The swimmer is the engine while the pilot is the driver,” he explains, “and we are only as good as the engine we are given. Like with a car, when it starts to play up, you have to make the decision to drive on or not. If there’s nothing leſt in the tank, you can’t continue to go forward.” He says people oſt en don’t realise what they’ve got themselves into until the swim starts. “I wish this sport was taken more seriously,” he says. “It’s in the same bracket as climbing Everest as far as prepping goes, and people can’t fi t in training here and there. We always say to people they should know their limitations – because to succeed they will need to exceed them.” Despite the occasional frustration, Mike says that pilots get a lot of satisfaction out of organising Channel swimming, especially from the closeness of the community. He’s proud to help with something that changes peoples’ lives. “Swimming the Channel is an amazing achievement, which increases your ability to improve your image, status and income in life” – what other experience can do that?
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The main part of her role is in leading the training weekends from May until October, where wannabe Channel swimmers come to soak up her considerable expertise. Unsurprisingly for someone who stands outside for hours at a time, she says the weather is her least favourite thing about her role, but the swimmers themselves keep her going. In training, her mot o is “keep it simple”, and she insists on no fuss and drama. This no-frills approach has given her a reputation for being a tartar, unyielding and fi erce, but she knows Channel training bet er than anyone, and the right technique it takes to fi nish. “I have advocated Total Body Confusion (TBC) training for my swimmers for the past 25 years,” she says. “It seemed to solve most of the problems I had noticed with swimmers who were following traditional pat erns." "The idea is not to let your body or mind slip into a set pat ern. Vary your training between sprints, long swims (for diff erent time periods), repetitive weight liſt ing and
whatever else you can think of.” In addition to the training weekends, Streeter
oversees all contenders’ six-hour-long qualifying swims (two hours for relay team members), which help the CS&PF know that the swimmers are capable of going the distance physically, but also mentally. “Nearly every swimmer goes through a bad mental period on their Channel swim, oſt en around the sixth or seventh hour. If you can swim for six hours then we, and you, will know that you have put in the training and that you are not wasting your money or at empting something beyond your means.” According to her, a lack of mental toughness can hamper the ability to fi nish a swim; “Channel swimmers have to be very bloody minded, and very, very strong willed,” she says. You get the feeling it takes one to know one.
THE WORDS CHANNEL SWIMMER ON A CV MAKE IT STAND OUT– IT’S A LIFE- CHANGING EXPERIENCE
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