At just 23, cancer survivor Marion Joffle has broken the record for the fastest swim across the English Channel by a French woman.
Joffle, who had epithelioid sarcoma as a child (a rare type of slow-growing, soft tissue cancer) completed the crossing on Sunday in a time of nine hours and 22 minutes.
The Caen-resident swam the 34 kilometres route from Dover, a major ferry port in Kent, South East England to the northern French Cape of Cap Gris-Nez.
A team of supporters live-streamed her swim on her public Facebook page, while accompanying her journey on an adjacent boat.
“To spend nine hours and 22 minutes in saltwater and to swim non-stop from England to France is really exhausting, but I stick with the positives and I still have an enormous smile [on my face] for having linked up two countries by swimming,” Joffle told France 3.
“I trained really hard for this crossing attempt. I was ready mentally, and therefore physically as well. During the crossing, I had high and low points, but I was able to get to the end of the challenge.”
Joffle’s swim raised raised over €7,500 for the Institut Curie Caner Research Foundation in Paris, a leading medical research centre specialising in the treatment of cancer.
Her latest swim breaks the previous record held by then 17-year old Marion Hans, who swam the Channel in nine hours and 42 minutes in 1994.