SWIMMING NEWS: David Walliams near the end of his 140-mile River Thames swim

The U.K. knows how to entertain. We love their films and short-run shows. In the states we gobble them up and reharsh the winners; American Idol, The Office.  We should be doing the same with SPORT RELIEF, or SPORT RELIEF 2012.  

(Photo: Walliams, swimming the River Thames)

(PHOTO: Walliams as most fans recognize him)

I tripped across Sport Relief looking for swimming news. Presently, David Walliams, British born actor (writer) and star of Little Britain and Come Fly with Me, is swimming the River Thames, the entire 140-mile length of the river, for Sport Relief 2012. It's all a part of Britain's biggest fundraising effort to help people living incredibly tough lives, at home in the UK and across the world's poorest countries.

CHECKOUT WALLIAMS IN ACTION!

WALLIAMS HAS A LONG SWIMMING HISTORY. VIA WIKIPEDIA READ:

Swimming The English Channel

Walliams took up swimming as a youth as his preferred form of exercise, because he was overweight. On 4 July 2006 he swam the English Channel for the charity Sport Relief (part of Comic Relief). He took 10 hours and 34 minutes to swim the 35 km (22 miles) stretch of sea, the equivalent of 700 lengths of an Olympic standard swimming pool. This was wrongly reported as one of the top 50 recorded times for an unaided Channel crossing: in reality Walliams placed 167th at the time of crossing in only the CSA listings, excluding the CSPF listings. He raised over £1 million in donations. Under the supervision of his trainer, he trained for nine months to prepare for the swim.The training had to coincide with Walliams and Lucas's Little Britain Live tour, so every day he had to complete several hours of training before performing on stage in the evening. Walliams first swam from Lee-on-the-Solent near Portsmouth to the Isle Of Wight in around 2 hours and he also completed an eight-hour swim off the coast of Croatia before embarking on the cross-channel attempt. Walliams has insisted that prior to his challenge he had never seriously taken part in any sport.The Bluetones' lead singer Mark Morriss wrote a song, "Fade In/Fade Out", in honour of Walliams' achievement; it can be found on their self-titled album, released on 9 October 2006.^{[citation needed]}

Swimming The Strait of Gibraltar

On 7 March 2008, Walliams, along with James Cracknell, swam the 12 miles (19 km) Strait of Gibraltar from Spain to Morocco, again for Sport Relief. He successfully completed the swim in just over 4 1/2 hours.

Comments

[Stef]

WOW, good for David Williams!!!!

[gmm]

Lisa... I love Sport Relief. They get it! I'm a fan.... Thx for the link!

[Lisa Stephens]

Britain has a raised millions with Sports Relief. Here's Tom Daley with "Smithy" from the BBC Show, "Gavin and Stacey" (which is hilarious!) We need to do more of this in the States, I agree!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hx7R9kg7Ecg