Most of us are familiar with swimming in controlled environments like swimming pools, but there are a class of swimmers that venture into water bodies such as oceans, seas, lakes and rivers. Such swimmers are called ‘open water swimmers’.
Bhakti Sharma is an Indian open water swimmer from Udaipur, Rajasthan. She was born on November 30, 1989 in Mumbai, Maharashtra to Chandra Shekar Sharma and Leena Sharma. She started swimming at age 2 with her mother Leena Sharma doubling as her coach.
Her first open water swim was a 16-km stretch from Uran harbour in Navi Mumbai to the Gateway of India in 2003, at the age of 14.
Sharma shares the Asian record for the first swim by a 3-member Women’s relay team across the English Channel with her friend Priyanka Gehlot and mother Leena Sharma. Sharma and her mother also hold the world record for the first mother-daughter duo to swim across the English Channel in 2008.
She is the first Asian woman and the youngest in the world to set a record in Antarctic waters. She swam 1.4 miles in 41.14 minutes at a temperature of 1°C, in January 2015. Sharma also holds a swimming record for swimming in all five oceans of the world.
Sharma received the ‘Tenzing Norgay National Adventure Award’ in 2010. She is a popular speaker who has given motivational talks about her inspiring journey from the deserts of Rajasthan to the icy waters of Antarctica.
Picture Credit : Google
Leave a Reply