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I can't walk to the shops but I'll try to swim the Channel
A woman who needs a wheelchair to get about is to embark on the challenge of a lifetime and swim 21 miles across the English Channel.
Rosalinda Hardiman will brave freezing waters, jellyfish and seasickness as she swims for up to 20 hours across one of the world's busiest shipping lanes – using just her arms.
The 56-year-old is determined to join an elite handful of disabled people who have completed the gruelling challenge, to prove to herself and others just what can be achieved.
She said: 'This is a long-term dream. There is a lot of prejudice in swimming once people look at the wheelchair.
'Perhaps by doing this I will be waving the flag to say "do not discount us – we may not be able to walk to the shops or run for the bus but there is a lot we can do".'
Ms Hardiman was struck down by polio when she was just six, and by the time she was a teenager she had very limited movement in her legs.
After a string of painful operations she was left with leg calipers and in a wheelchair, but the collections manager for Portsmouth's city museum has never let it stop her.
Ms Hardiman, of Byron Road, Copnor, started swimming in the sea after moving to Portsmouth in 1980.
But she soon discovered a talent for racing in pools, and went on to become a medal-winning paralympian.
Just after the Sydney Olympics a driver reversed into her stationary car as she was reaching to get something from the glove box, injuring her shoulder and ending her competitive-pool swimming career, forcing her to return to open-water swimming.
Already she has swum the English Channel in a relay team of six, and she recently swam the length of Lake Windermere.
Ms Hardiman said: 'This is the big one for me. I have never done anything like this before.
'For a long time I didn't know how to go about doing it.
'Being disabled means I am a little bit shy of new things, having been brushed off so many times in the past.
'Even though I now have a full-time job and a fully independent life, I still feel the need to prove myself.'
Ms Hardiman was due to set off tomorrow, but bad weather means she is waiting for an opportunity to travel to Dover to start the challenge – which could be any day.
She said: 'I am nervous. I don't really like jellyfish having been stung before.
'But no matter how awful it is while I am doing it, I just want to do this.'
FOR most Channel swimmers the moment of glory is staggering out of the cold water and on to the beach in France.
But if Rosalinda Hardiman completes her challenge even this will be impossible.
She will have to hoist herself arm-by-arm up the beach to get clear of the water before officially being declared a Channel swimmer.
This is just one of a host of extra difficulties she will face that able-bodied swimmers would not even think about.
She said: 'I cannot run up on the shore – that is one of the most difficult bits, as I have to slither up the beach in a seal fashion.'
Even eating is a problem.
Channel swimmers are not allowed to have any contact with their support boat, so food – half a banana or a chocolate mini-roll – will be flung out to Ms Hardiman in floating feeding bottles.
She said: 'It is difficult because I cannot tread water as I don't have the use of my legs, so I have to use my arms and eat at the same time.'
Ms Hardiman has been in training since May, heading to Dover at the weekends to get her body used to the cold water and waves.
She said: 'With open-water swimming you are not racing against anyone else, only yourself, so if you feel a little niggle you can slow down for a while. But conditions are harder in the ocean – it is cold and wavy, there is the salt and the tide and you can actually feel seasick if you lose the horizon. It does take a certain amount of mental grit.'
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Weather for Portsmouth
Saturday 11 February 2012
Today
Sunny
Temperature: -4 C to 3 C
Wind Speed: 8 mph
Wind direction: North east
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