Alice Tai MBE on conquering English Channel swim and looking ahead to Paris 2024

National World - LocalTV

Paralympic gold medallist Alice Tai has added another amazing achievement to her already impressive CV, Completing a swim of the ever so unpredictable English Channel.  We spoke to her about the challenge and her preparations for next year’s Games in Paris.

Transcript

00:00 Alice Tai who won gold at the 2016 Rio Games and most recently gold at the

00:07 Paris Swimming World Series in France has joined those who have swam the

00:11 English Channel including the likes of Matthew Webb back in 1875 and more

00:16 recently comedian David Walliams. What we did as a team you know when when

00:22 Optimum Nutrition came to me at the very start and they were like how about we do

00:27 a channel swim and we get you a team of amateur swimmers like we'll include

00:31 non-swimmers just any ability we want to really get people like finding more and

00:36 pushing themselves. I was kind of like honestly a little bit skeptical I was

00:41 like there's this is such an insane challenge but now on the other side and

00:46 seeing the progress that my teammates have made and the fact that we literally

00:50 like swam the channel this time a couple days ago we just swam the channel um is

00:56 is mind-blowing and I'm so proud of everyone. Alice has teamed up with

01:00 Optimum Nutrition and Professor Greg White who previously helped Walliams to

01:05 swim the channel. The Paralympic athlete was joined by five novice sea swimmers

01:10 all of whom had no formal sea swimming experience and one having never swam

01:15 before to help her in the challenge. This involved a five-month transformation

01:21 ahead of the 21 mile relay which saw the participants spending up to 18 hours a

01:26 day in the water at just 8 degrees Celsius. Greg White the guy that was

01:31 coaching everyone said that it is a life-changing experience and I really

01:35 after having done it it really has been life-changing. I'm well adapted to the

01:40 pool so the sea was a whole new challenge but yeah half the five months

01:45 ago she couldn't swim and now she can say that she's conquered the channel

01:51 with the rest of our team and that that's insane you know every time

01:55 someone jumps in the water every single person on that team had a story and that

01:59 was part of the selection process you know we wanted people who had stories

02:03 who had like reason and motivation to be there who would really put in a hundred

02:08 and ten percent and it really rubbed off you know. Another fantastic challenge

02:13 ticked off for Alice as she and her team completed the swim of the English

02:17 Channel with Paris on the horizon what are her hopes for the upcoming games and

02:22 how is she preparing to head to France? So I've got to kind of readjust to the

02:28 elite athlete like lifestyle I guess as opposed to training for the channel yeah

02:34 Paralympics next year my main goal I've still not got Paralympic individual gold

02:38 so I'd really quite like to to achieve that so that's probably what I'm focused

02:45 on the most right now. As preparations are well into motion for the majority of

02:51 Olympic and Paralympic athletes Alice can use the physical and mental benefits

02:56 of this challenge to help her and she goes on the hunt for her first singles

03:00 Paralympic gold medal next year

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