Sorry, Matt Damon’s uncle, who once held the record for the oldest person to swim the cold, polluted, debris-cluttered English Channel. You’ve just been outdone by 70-year-old Roger Allsopp, who flailed his way across that miserable stretch of water in a little under 18 hours. Allsopp, from Guernsey, a retired breast cancer surgeon, was slower than Damon’s uncle (George Brunstad of Connecticutt, who made it in under 16 hours), but still. Quite the accomplishment. Twenty-one miles, if you were wondering.
Allsopp’s declining years have been busy. He ran the London Marathon at age 60 and in 2006 made his first channel crossing into France at age 65.
By Tim Dawson (Flickr: Nervous Swimmer) [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
