By Braden Keith on SwimSwam
Whether it life as a high-level competitive swimmer that prepared Colin O’Brady for his journey, or whether the two had similar grounding in some innate quality, the former Yale swimmer on Wednesday completed a journey that will go on the record as one of the greatest feats of individual human endurance in history.
O’Brady has spent the last 54 days on a 930-mile (1,500 kilometer) solo trek across Antarctica, in what has been deemed as the Impossible First.
When Sir Vivian Fuchs and Sir Edmund Hillary completed their first trans-Antarctic Expedition lasted 3 years from 1955-1958, and included a large support team travelling in 6 vehicles.
And O’Brady did the crossing the hard way – nearly the entire journey was uphill, and he made the whole trip without any assistance, on foot, pulling a sleight that contained his necessary gear.
The 33-year old graduated from Yale in 2006 with a degree in economics before immediately embarking upon a backpacking trip around the world, which launched his love for incredible endurance adventures, which included receiving 2nd and 3rd degree burns in 2008 when participating in a local custom of fire jump-roping on the island of Koh Tao.
After a career as a commodities trader and long rehab, he began triathlon training, and eventually became an accomplished triathlete. He would eventually qualify for the 2010 World Triathlon Championships in Budapest, Hungary, which launched his career as a professional athlete. He’s since expanded his triathlons into more endurance events, such as his latest trek.
At Yale, O’Brady was a breaststroker, with lifetimes bests of 58.34 and 2:07.06 in the 100 and 200 yard distances, respectively.
O’Brady isn’t the only swimmer to make news in Antarctica this month: Diego Lopez swam the Antarctic Kilometer, which wrapped his 2018 goal of finishing a major open water swim on each continent.
Read the full story on SwimSwam: Former Yale Swimmer Colin O’Brady Completes ‘Impossible First’