Alicja Giedryś became the 14th Pole and only the fourth Polish woman to swim the channel, a feat she achieved on her third attempt. Her two bids to beat the 33-km challenge—in 2021 and 2022—ended unsuccessfully for health reasons.

Giedryś is no stranger to endurance swimming, however, having completed the Extreme Baltic Challenge in 2019, in which she became the first woman to swim the 36 kilometers from the Baltic port of Gdynia to the Hel peninsula and back.

She has also competed in the ‘Otyliada’ Night Swimming Marathon, named after the famous Polish Olympic champion Otylia Jędrzejczak, swimming 39.4 km in 12 hours and placing first among female contestants and fourth overall.

Her successful third attempt at the Channel on August 14 saw her brave water temperatures of just 15-18 degrees Celsius and strong currents. But she refuses to say she has beaten the channel.

“I didn’t defeat it, I didn’t conquer it, I didn’t settle the score,” she wrote on Facebook, “because to paraphrase [mountaineer] Wojtek Kurtka: When you experience a great bond with the water, it is not appropriate to conquer it.

“It was beautiful, remembering that sadness, pain and confusion can also be beautiful,” she added.

A student of the Gdańsk University of Physical Education and Sport, Giedryś is also a member of the mobility-impaired swimming section of Szansa–Start Gdańsk, a sports rehabilitation association.