SA: Van Wisse still swimming after Murray River world record

AAP General News (Australia)
02-15-2001
SA: Van Wisse still swimming after Murray River world record

EDS: Changes number of days Van Wisse swimming to 104 from 103 in version sent earlier.



WELLINGTON, Feb 15 AAP - Despite breaking the world record for swimming the length
of the River Murray today, Tammy Van Wisse says the hardest part of her epic journey lies
ahead.

Van Wisse has swum 2,369km in 104 days, smashing Graham Middleton's 1991 record of
138 days for swimming the river's length.

Van Wisse surpassed Middleton's mark this morning, just outside the South Australian
town of Wellington.

The 32-year-old Van Wisse will now swim another 69km across Lake Alexandrina and is
expected to reach the Murray mouth on Sunday.

By then she will have covered 2,438km.

"I got very excited about breaking the record but I really have to keep my focus because
the hardest part of the swim is yet to come," Van Wisse said today.

"I know now Lake Alexandrina can be extremely dangerous and I have a great deal of
respect for it.

"I'm confident that I can do it but obviously the 2,300km that I've done already has
taken a lot out of me."

Van Wisse said choppy conditions posed the greatest threat to her crossing of the lake.

"The wind can whip up very, very quickly and being a shallow body of water it actually
gets very, very choppy and rough," she said.

"So to battle those kind of conditions now, I can tell you my arms are quite fatigued
so I can't put up with as much as I did perhaps in the first month of the swim, so I have
to go at the opportune times."

AAP vm/scl/sl/jas/bwl

KEYWORD: WISSE LEAD

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