Aug 19, 2007 6:10 pm US/Eastern
Champion Swimmer To Swim Around Manhattan
Hopes To Raise Money For Cancer Patients
NEW YORK (AP) ―
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Dominican champion swimmer Marcos Diaz plans to circle Manhattan island.
After more than 22 consecutive hours of swimming around Manhattan, Marcos Diaz finally came ashore on Sunday.
The Dominican world record holder had a goal for his marathon overnight swim: to raise money for poor Dominican children with cancer and start a program for youngsters with asthma.
Diaz, 32, battled asthma as a child by swimming in the Caribbean waters, which turned him into an athlete.
"I started to swim when I was 6 to improve my lungs and my breathing," Diaz said before plunging into the Hudson River on Saturday evening.
He circled the island—which is about 13 miles long and 2 miles wide at its widest—twice and finished the 60-mile swim just before 5 p.m. Sunday at the Dyckman Marina in the Washington Heights neighborhood, which is the heart of New York's Dominican community.
Diaz walked out of the water smiling after 22 hours and 14 minutes of swimming. He was welcomed by thousands of people and a Dominican feast featuring live music. While doctors examined Diaz in a tent, the crush of the crowd was so intense that organizers found a look-alike to draw admirers away.
Diaz had swum around Manhattan in a protective wet suit. A team aboard a support boat measured the changing currents so he could opt for the route of least resistance, and every 20 minutes a container of nutritional fluids was placed into the water for him.
In 2005, Diaz set the speed record between two continents when he crossed the Strait of Gibraltar, between Spain and Morocco, both ways in 8 hours and 34 minutes. He's also a two-time winner of the Toroneos Gulf Crossing in Greece and has swum across the English Channel.
The Manhattan swim was to benefit children with leukemia in the Dominican Republic, at the Robert Reid Cabral Children's Hospital in the capital of Santo Domingo.
Diaz lives there with his wife, Natalia Bentz, who is his manager.
Together, they run the Marcos Diaz Foundation, which is seeking corporate and private donations to fund treatments for the cancer-stricken children and to start a program for those with asthma.
Diaz said the Dominican government was sponsoring his New York marathon swim.
He said his athleticism is "above sports. It's about social impact." He said his success despite his asthma proves that "everyone can achieve their dreams despite physical limitations."
(© 2007 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
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