Linda McGill

At the 1962 British Empire and Commonwealth Games, McGill won the bronze medal in the women's 110-yard butterfly, the silver medal in the women's 440-yard individual medley, and the gold medal in the 4×110-yard medley relay.[2] In 1964, she was banned by amateur swimming authorities for four years for alleged misbehavior at the Tokyo Olympic Games.[3][4]

In 1965, McGill moved to London on a working holiday visa. During the northern hemisphere summer of 1965, she accepted a dare to swim the English Channel. Although she had represented her country as an Olympic swimmer the year before, she specialized in fairly short distances and had never swum more than one kilometer at a time before--the Channel, by contrast, is 35 km. Officials of the English Channel Association were appalled to learn that she was about to attempt the Channel swim with only a few weeks lunchtime training and no long distance or cold water experience. McGill, however, decided to go ahead with the swim, feeling in part that success might help vindicate her earlier ban from Olympic swimming.[4] She completed the long distance swim, becoming the first Australian to swim the English Channel on 7 August 1965,[3] swimming topless and posing topless for press photographs after the swim.[4] On this swim, she finished in 11 hours, 12 minutes and missed setting a then-world women's record by just 11 minutes.[5][6]

In an effort to beat the record, she formally petitioned for and was granted permission from the Channel Swimming Association to swim topless, in order to prevent the straps of her swimming costume from cutting into her shoulders, as they had done on previous long swims.[7][8] In 1967, she beat the record with a time of just under 10 hours.[3] On 23 May 1976, swimming topless most of the way, she became the first person ever to swim around Hong Kong Island, accomplishing this in 17 hours, 6 minutes. The swim, in a counterclockwise direction, was sponsored by Cathay Pacific and began and ended in Repulse Bay. McGill faced difficulties including jellyfish stings, pollution, objects in the water, ships, and inclement weather. Starting five miles into her swim, she took off her bikini top and went topless to avoid chafing. Although official records aren't kept for Hong Kong swims, this swim established an unofficial record for either gender that stood for over 40 years. McGill's record was beaten on 11 November 2017 by Simon Holliday, who swam the distance in 12 hours, 32 minutes.[9][10][11][12][13]