Diana Nyad (born August 22, 1949 in New York City) is an American, author journalist and long-distance swimmer noted for her world record endurance championships.Over two days in 1979, Nyad swam from Bimini to Florida, setting a distance record for non-stop swimming without a wetsuit that still stands today. She broke numerous world records, including the 45-year-old mark for circling Manhattan Island (7 hrs, 57 min) in 1975. She was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame in 1986. Nyad was honored with her induction in the International Swimming Hall of Fame in 2003.
After graduating from Pine Crest School in 1967 she entered Emory University, but was thrown out of school for jumping out a fourth-floor dormitory window wearing a parachute. She then enrolled at Lake Forest College in Illinois, where she played tennis for the Foresters and resumed swimming, concentrating on distance events. She soon came to the attention of Buck Dawson, director of the International Swimming Hall of Fame in Florida, who introduced her to marathon swimming. She began training at his Camp Ak-O-Mak in Ontario, Canada and set a women’s world record of 4 hours and 22 minutes in her first race, a 10-mile swim in Lake Ontario in July 1970 (finishing 10th overall). After graduating from Lake Forest College (with degrees in English and French), Diana Nyad returned to south Florida to continue training with Dawson.
Diana Nyad was inducted into the United States’ National Women’s Sports Hall of Fame in 1986, and in 2003 was honored with her induction into the International Swimming Hall of Fame. According to her “Speaker Bio” posted for the Gold Star Speakers Bureau in 2006, she is also a Hall of Famer at both her college, Lake Forest College in Illinois (where she graduated Phi Beta Kappa), and at her (private) high school, Pine Crest School in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida). Diana is not only a world-class distance swimmer but is also an accomplished athlete who once ranked 30th amongst U.S. women squash players (date not given).
