Night owl Cedric conquers Channel

Monday 15th September 2008, 2:59PM BST.

JERSEY long distance swimmer Cédric Bird has completed his Channel swim.

With just weeks to go until the end of the season, Bird finally got his chance to tackle the Dover to Calais stretch at 10 pm on Friday evening, after numerous other attempts were aborted due to adverse weather conditions.

The Jersey Long Distance Swimming Club member was piloted by 43 times Channel swimmer Alison Streeter, and accompanied by his wife Sophie, as well as Channel swimmers Sally Minty-Gravett, Ian Jones and Ian Muir.

Despite the recent drop in sea temperature conditions at the time of the swim were excellent, and Bird touched French soil in 11.46 hours. He said: ‘I still can’t believe I’ve done it. The last thing I expected was to be swimming through the night, but with the tides and the weather that was the game plan.’

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