Pouleth Carbajal swam from England to France in a little more than 14 hours over the weekend, becoming the first person from the Mexican state of Colima to complete a solo English Channel crossing.
The 24-year-old native of Manzanillo, Colima, left Shakespeare Beach, near Dover, at 2:12 a.m. Sunday and that afternoon reached the dunes at Wissant, France, according to the Channel Swimming & Piloting Federation (CS&PF).
The federation listed her unofficial time at 14 hours, 7 minutes. Mexican reports said she covered 65.3 kilometers, or about 40.6 miles, as currents extended her route beyond the channel’s narrowest straight-line distance of about 21 miles.
Carbajal was coached by Sandra Venegas Ortiz, and her support team included Gabriela Cuero, her mother. Listed as an observer was Karina Almanza, a swimmer from Mexico City who herself completed the English Channel in 2018.
Carbajal’s swim remains subject to official ratification, but the federation called it an “unofficial success” and congratulated her “on a great swim.”
In a Facebook post, the Manzanillo municipal government called her accomplishment “a source of pride for Manzanillo,” adding that Carbajal showed that “with discipline, preparation and determination, it is possible to achieve great challenges.”
The English Channel is among open-water swimming’s best-known endurance tests, requiring swimmers to contend with cold water, tides, currents and some of the world’s busiest shipping lanes. In Spanish, the waterway is called the Canal de la Mancha, derived from its name in French, La Manche, “the sleeve.”
The CS&PF database lists 3,384 solo channel swims by 2,728 swimmers, and historical data cited by Britannica put the average successful crossing time at roughly 13 hours, 34 minutes.
The one-way record is 6 hours, 45 minutes and 25 seconds, set by Germany’s Andreas Waschburger in 2023. The women’s record is 7:25:15, set by Czech swimmer Yvetta Hlaváčová in 2006.
According to the English Channel Swimming database, Carbajal’s swim, once ratified, will become the 88th Mexican solo crossing of the channel.
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That list includes a pair of two-way, over-and-back crossings — Nora Toledano Cadena in 1994 and Carlos Alfonso Acosta Aldrete in 2023; both are from Mexico City.
Another prominent Mexican open-water swimmer is David Olvera, a San Luis Potosí native who swam nonstop from Cozumel to Cancún earlier this year, and last year set a Guinness World Record for the fastest circumnavigation swim around Manhattan Island (5:34.58).
Patricia Guerra from Mexico City completed the same course around Manhattan (7:53.12) in August 2023, a month after swimming the Strait of Gibraltar between Spain and Morocco.
With reports from El Heraldo de México and Milenio
