LEWIS PUGH

Born in the UK in on 5 December 1969, a young Lewis Pugh, who would go on to become a world renowned pioneer swimmer and conservationist, moved to South Africa with his parents, Gordon and Margery Pugh, at the age of 10.  South African became his second home for the next 17 years.

At the age of 17 he embarked on the first of his swimming feats by completing the swim from Robben Island to Cape Town in three hours. Pugh, more recently known as the human polar bear for his numerous extreme cold water swims, followed this by completing the first swim across Lake Malawi with Otto Thaning covering the 25km in 9 hours and 50 minutes, and swimming across the English Channel in 14 hours and 50 minutes at the age to 22 while studying for his Law degree at the University to Cape Town.

A St Andrews College and Camps Bay High School scholar, Pugh went on to become a maritime lawyer in London, and a reservist in the elite British Special Air Service before deciding to follow his dreams and push the boundaries of what is considered possible.

He abandoned his career which included reading international law at Jesus College in Cambridge to became a swimming pioneer, achieving feats similar to his childhood heroes of Scott and Hillary, except in water rather than on land.

Pugh achieved an impressive selection of world firsts in the swimming world. He became the first person to swim around the North Cape, the most northern point in Europe and the first to swim the length of Sognefjord in Norway, the longest fjord in the world.

He was also the first person to swim around the Cape of Good Hope and to swim around the entire Cape Peninsula.

In 2005 Pugh broke the world record for the most northern long distance swim, deep in the Arctic Ocean and undertook the longest polar swim - one mile across Whalers Bay in the South Shetland Islands.

He went on to win a gold medal in the 500-metre freestyle event at the World Winter Games in Finland in 2006. The same year he became the first person to achieve what is considered the Holy Grail of swimming having completed a long distance swim in every ocean in the world.

But Pugh is probably best known for his one kilometre swim in an open patch of sea at the North Pole in July 2007 wearing only his trademark Speedo, swimming cap and goggles.  He plunged into the minus 1.7 degree Celsius water to draw attention to the impact of global warming, the melting of the Arctic sea ice and the plight of his favourite animal, the polar bear. That swim in freezing waters that few would survive took 18 minutes and 50 seconds to complete.

An accomplished and compelling motivational speaker, Pugh was awarded a fellowship at the New York Explorers Club, Rotary International’s Paul Harris Fellowship and Sports Adventurer of the Year Award by the French Sports Academy in 2007.

In 2008 he founded the Polar Defence Project which went on to win the Best Project for the Environment at the inaugural Beyond Sports Awards in 2009.

2009 was also the year Pugh received the highest honour in South Africa – the gold cross, or Order of Ikhamanga – for his exceptional sporting triumphs, humanitarian feats and creating consciousness about the negative effects of global warming.

Pugh learnt the importance of a well-prepared support team on his early expeditions. He included renowned South African sports scientist, Tim Noakes, on both his arctic and Antarctic expeditions. It was Prof Noakes from the University of Cape Town who first recorded Pugh’s unique ability to raise his core body temperature by two degrees Celsius before diving into cold water – and called it anticipatory thermo-genesis.

In 2010, Pugh was appointed a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum, and went on to complete his hardest challenge yet – a 22 minute and 51 second swim across Lake Pumori, a glacial lake on Mount Everest at an altitude of 5,300 metres. Pugh succeeded on his second attempt after realising his usual tactic of pushing determinedly and fast through a cold-water swim could not work at high altitude.

Now a sought-after speaker, Pugh, who describes himself as an explorer, athlete and polar protector, has just published his first book. Achieving the Impossible is a riveting and inspirational account of Pugh’s life, and how he came to believe in his passions and dreams and dared to achieve the impossible.

It is reassuring to know that Pugh, with his first hand experience of goal-setting teamwork and leadership, thinks that saving our planet is not impossible. He’s complete a number of other firsts, like swimming the entire length of the River Thames to raise awareness and hopefully the World Economic Forum is right in believing he has “the potential to shape the future of the world through his inspiring leadership”.