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A swimming record

— PHOTO: AP

Slovenian Martin Strel is seen in the Amazon river.

RIO DE JANEIRO: Slovenian Martin Strel completed his swim of the entire 5,265-km Amazon River on Sunday, a 65-day odyssey in which he battled exhaustion and delirium while trying to avoid flesh-eating piranhas and the dreaded bloodsucking toothpick fish. Averaging about 80 km a day since he started stroking in the Amazon's Peruvian headwaters on February 1, Mr. Strel fulfilled his goal near the city of Belem, 2,440 km north of Rio de Janeiro. If confirmed by Guinness World Records, it will be the fourth time the 52-year-old has broken a world swimming distance record. ``He's hit point zero,'' said his son and project coordinator, Borut Strel, by telephone from the Amazon, the world's second-longest river after the Nile. In 2000, Mr. Strel swam the length of Europe's 3,004-km Danube River, and then broke that record two years later when he swam 3,797 km down the United States' Mississippi. And in 2004, he set a new world record after swimming 4,003 km along China's Yangtze. — AP

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A swimming record

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