So what did you do over the holidays? Twenty-yearold swimmer Andrea Klementová can answer that question with a smile on her face because she swam across the English Channel – twice. On 9 July in a relay with five other swimmers and on 13 August in a solo swim. Both times successfully.
Andrea is a multiple World and European Championship medallist in winter swimming. Last September, she placed 14th in the Czech Open Water Swimming Championships (20 km event), and in October she swam the length of the Dalešice Reservoir (over 17 kilometres). However, to swim across the strait separating the British Isles and France, she had to cross almost three times the distance – 45 kilometres.
Andrea started swimming competitively in a pool in Třebíč. But when the Covid-19 pandemic hit and the pools closed, she missed the water and the training so much that she tried swimming outside. “I know that hundreds of other swimmers did this during the pandemic, but I’ve found that I don’t get cold outside and I actually enjoy swimming in open water. So I started winter swimming the next season, and one competition followed another,” says Andrea of her early days in cold water.
She first had the idea of swimming the English Channel last Christmas. She was a first-year student at the Faculty of Sports Studies, majoring in Sports, Regeneration and Nutrition, and had been training for several months at the Krokodýl Brno swimming club with a group of long-distance swimmers led by coach Petr Cvrček.
“The preparation was rather short. When Andrea joined the team, I told her we were preparing for the long-distance swimming season. Then I found out that she wanted to swim in winter and take part in the winter swimming season. And then she added that she was also planning to swim the English Channel in the summer. I consulted about her training not only with coaches here in Czechia, but also with the coach of the Australian long-distance swimming team. We set out the basic requirements for her to be physically f it to swim the English Channel. We knew how many kilometres she had to swim per week and for how long we had to keep it up. The special training for the English Channel took four months. We focused on her technique, she swam in the pool and in open water, she did the nomination six-hour races twice, she also went to sea in Italy in the spring,” says coach Cvrček, adding that Andrea was lucky to be able to swim the Channel six months after her decision. “Others don’t get the chance so soon; swimmers often have to wait a year for an open date to make the attempt,” her coach points out.
It is not possible to just jump into the water and swim across the English Channel. Swimmers have to pay a fee to the association that registers the crossings and sends a boat, a captain/pilot and a referee to accompany them. So before she could plunge into the waters of the English Channel, Andrea not only had to train and harden herself, but also raise around €12,000. She was supported by sponsors.
In the end, Andrea was more afraid of the organisational difficulties and the possibility of something going wrong there than the swim itself. “It’s one thing to jump in and swim, but I was really worried that I had messed up something in the organisation. I had arranged everything myself via emails in English, so I had some doubts,” admits Andrea. “And then I had the usual fears: how cold the water would be and what I would encounter in the water. Turns out I ran across various fish and also jellyfish. It wasn’t too bad, but there were a lot of them off the coast of France and my skin was quite red from their stings by the end.”
The swim route across the Channel follows the route of the ferries. The sight of a container ship from the water, and how tiny she was in comparison, did not sit well with either Andrea or her coach, who battled seasickness from the very first minute. “I never really understood seasickness, but I still feel sick when I see a picture of a boat,” admits the coach.
Andrea also struggled with nausea. She had to replenish her energy during the 13-hour swim, but it was very difficult. Refreshments, delivered from the boat with a long pole and a cup on the end, have to be consumed fast on the English Channel. The strong currents can carry swimmers dozens of metres away from the set route in a matter of minutes. “I was given sports drinks, a banana smoothie, fruit puree and a protein bar – but I didn’t even manage to chew it properly. And I threw up most of the food anyway because the waves made me nauseous,” says Andrea.
Czech swimmer Yvetta Hlaváčová holds the women’s record for crossing the English Channel in 2006 with a time of 7 hours and 25 minutes. Unlike Andrea, she had ideal conditions for her swim. “You always wait for good conditions for the crossing. You need to be aware of the currents off the coast, the wind and the tides. I was told on Sunday that there would be good but not ideal conditions on Tuesday or Saturday, so I went for Tuesday. I started at three o’clock in the morning and swam to France in 13 hours and 58 minutes,” says Andrea Klementová.
According to the rules, she swam in a regular swimsuit, mostly doing the crawl, occasionally switching to breaststroke or backstroke to take a little rest. Her training partner Jakub Kačerovský, who is preparing to cross the Channel himself, was allowed to jump in and swim with her twice for an hour. Her fans were waiting for her on the pier in France. “They asked if I was Andrea, congratulated me and shouted bravo. Their photos, in which I don’t look exactly happy or very good, went around the world,” adds Andrea.
Reflecting on her performance, Andrea says she wasn’t feeling tired in the water. “The time went by very quickly. I watched people on the boat, and I want to thank the crew. They were very supportive.” As well as being listed as a successful English Channel swimmer, the crossing gave her experience in swimming and organisational skills – and a sore shoulder that she now has to heal. Even so, she is already thinking about what her next goal will be.
The Faculty of Sports Studies can also look forward to an assessment of Andrea’s performance, as she plans to write her Bachelor’s thesis on the effects of such extreme exertion on the body. “We recorded data on her body before and after the performance, we know the exact caloric expenditure, diet composition, distance, frequency and number of strokes, and we can calculate the speed at which she swam,” explains coach Petr Cvrček and gives away some of the numbers: it took Andrea 42,000 strokes and 12,000 breaths to cross the English Channel.