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16-year-old Prisha Tapre celebrates as she swam through the English Channel. (Image: Rahul Tapre)
16-year-old Prisha Tapre swam through the English Channel as part of her charity which aims to promote sports like swimming among the Asian community.
The 16-year-old teenager, Prisha Tapre completed an unbelievable feat by swimming through the English Channel on September 4, 2024. She was able to complete the challenge in 11 hours and 48 minutes.
“It just feels unreal. I still haven’t got my head around the fact I’ve swam the English Channel but I feel really good,” she said as quoted by BBC.
The teenager comes from Watford, a town in Hertfordshire northwest of Central London. She swam 34 kilometres (21 miles) from Dover to Cap Gris Nez in a bid to raise money for charity.
“It just feels unreal. I still haven’t got my head around the fact I’ve swam the English Channel but I feel really good,” said the young swimmer as quoted by PA news agency.
She suggested that the currents might have been a bit difficult during the first phase but she was able to power through in the end.
“Over the first two hours, it was choppy and it was dark, but I got over it, that was probably the worst part of my swim,” she said.
“After that, it all settled down and it was perfect, I could not ask for anything better. And it was warm. It was 19 degrees, but it was really still,” she added.
The teenage swimmer has been balancing her academics alongside her training for swimming as well where she goes on six-hour swims every weekend and also a 10-hour swim too.
Tapre took on the challenge to encourage young girls from ethnic minorities to take up sports like swimming.
“I think I wanted to prove to myself that I could do something big. I wanted to do something different, and I just wanted to challenge myself,” she shared.
“I’ve noticed that there aren’t a lot of ethnic minorities, like Asian girls, in competitive sports like swimming, and I just really wanted to influence other younger girls to go against the stereotypes,” she added.
As a result of her amazing feat, she has managed to raise a total of 3700 GBP (4,07,971 INR) for the Akshaya Patra, a UK-based charity which aims to end hunger and food poverty among children in India and the UK.
