FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 4, 2005

CONTACT: Lisa Lacher, (515) 271-3119, lisa.lacher@drake.edu

FAMOUS SWIMMER AND AUTHOR TO SPEAK AT DRAKE FRIDAY

Lynne Cox, who has been called "the best cold water, long-distance swimmer the world has ever seen," will speak about her adventures at 7 p.m. Friday, March 11, at Drake University. The event, which is free and open to the public, will take place in Bulldog Theater in Olmsted Center, 29th Street and University Avenue.

Cox has been setting records since she was 15, when she broke the men's and women's records for her 33-mile swim of the English Channel. At age 17, she shattered the men's record for swimming the Catalina Channel. She was the first person to swim the shark-infested waters around the Cape of Good Hope, South Africa.

In 1987, she swam the Bering Strait, the channel that forms the boundary between Alaska and Siberia, opening the U.S.-Soviet border for the first time in 48 years. She was then first to swim the Strait of Magellan, reputedly the most treacherous three-mile stretch of water in the world.

Not content with these records, she became the first person to swim more than a mile in 32-degree water to the ice-bound shore of Antarctica, where she was greeted by a flock of penguins in 2002. She chronicled that challenge in her book titled "Swimming to Antarctica: Tales of a Long-Distance Swimmer."

Cox has overcome many obstacles, including being considered too plump to participate in sports. She trained her body to tolerate many hours of freezing temperatures that might kill a normal person in a matter of minutes.

Named one of the notable women of 2003 by Glamour magazine, Cox was inducted into the Swimming Hall of Fame, praised by President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, featured on "60 Minutes" and profiled in People and Biography. Her presentation at Drake is sponsored by the Chrysalis Foundation, Drake's Women's Studies Program and Women's Awareness Coalition. For more information, contact the Chrysalis Foundation at (515) 255-1853.

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