September 03, 2020 - 10:39 AM
WHITE RIVER JUNCTION, N.H. - A 16-year-old from New Hampshire successfully swam across the English Channel, completing a 33-mile (53-kilometre) swim she called an “adventure.”
Vera Rivard, of Springfield, left Dover in the United Kingdom in the morning and arrived on a beach near Calais, France, just before midnight on Tuesday, the Valley News reported.
The swim took her more than 14 hours, the newspaper reported, and she is the second American to cross the channel this year.
"As she leaves the beach in England for her English Channel attempt, I will be the proudest parent ever! Not if she finishes, not how fast she swims, but that she was brave enough to start,” Rivard's mother, Darcie DeBlois-Rivard, wrote on Facebook.
A support boat accompanied Rivard across the channel through favourable conditions, the newspaper reported.
Rivard's swim cost her family around $15,000, about a third of which was covered by donations and sponsorships. The trip included a two-week quarantine in Dover, the newspaper reported.
Rivard completed a long-distance swim around Manhattan island earlier in 2020. She hopes to swim a third major open water course to Santa Catalina Island off California later this year.
News from © The Associated Press, 2020