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Slovenian swims to new record
By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published April 8, 2007
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil - After 3,272 miles of exhaustion, sunburn, delirium and piranhas, a 52-year-old Slovenian successfully completed a swim down the Amazon river Saturday that could set a new world record for distance - one he has broken three times already. After nine weeks, Martin Strel arrived near the city of Belem, the capital of the jungle state of Para, ending a swim almost as long as the drive from Miami to Seattle. Strel averaged about 50 miles a day since beginning his odyssey at the source of the world's second-longest river in Peru on Feb. 1. By Thursday evening, he was struggling with dizziness, vertigo, high blood pressure, diarrhea, nausea and delirium, his Web site said. But despite having difficulty standing and being ordered by the doctor not to swim, Strel was obsessed with finishing the course and insisted on night swimming. "He's hit point zero," Borut Strel, Martin's son and the project coordinator, said by telephone from the Amazon. "There will be a ceremony (today) in Belem, but he finished today." The elder Strel said that the going got tougher the closer he got to Belem. "The finish has been the toughest moment so far," he said Thursday.
[Last modified April 8, 2007, 01:20:37]
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