2024-09-02
39 分钟American endurance swimmer Diana Nyad faced down box jellyfish, cold and extreme fatigue to become the first person to swim from Cuba to Florida without a shark cage for protection, in 2013. She was 64 and had always been drawn by intense, seemingly unachievable feats of marathon swimming. It was after shooting to fame for swimming round the island of Manhattan in the 1970s that Diana first seized on an idea that had been planted in her head in childhood: she would swim the 112 miles from Cuba to Florida's Key West. Five attempts and more than thirty years later, she finally succeeded, wobbling unsteadily up the beach after nearly 53 hours in the water to tell a cheering crowd, "never, ever give up... you are never too old to chase your dreams." Archive from Diana's swimming and broadcasting careers appears courtesy of: Florida Keys TV; The Wolfson Archives, Miami Dade College; PBS; FOX Sports; ABC; Courage to Succeed (1977). This programme has been re-edited and corrected since first published. Presenter: Asya Fouks Producer: Laura Thomas and Saskia Edwards Get in touch: liveslessordinary@bbc.co.uk or WhatsApp: 0044 330 678 2784
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Back in the 50s, when my guest Diana Nyad was a kid, she'd stand on the beaches of southern Florida with her mom and she'd squint.
Just out of you was an island, an island that became almost like a myth.
It was called Cuba.
I asked my mom, where is it?
I know Cuba's out there.
I can't see it because it was just over the horizon, over the curve of the earth.
And most people in our area of Florida knew Cuba very well.
For Diana, it was a mysterious island.
It fascinated her in the way that things do in the supercharged imaginations of children.
Then, at the end of the 1950s, the Cuban revolutionary Fidel Castro seized power.
After that, the country was a no go zone for most Americans.
The island would become even more isolated, even more far away in the years to come.
At the same time, Diana was developing another obsession.