DHAKA, 15 April 2018:
A teen swimmer from India’s western Pune city set a world record by swimming from Saint Martin’s Island Jetty – a Bangladeshi coral island to Teknaf southernmost point of the country and back – becoming the first person, in the process, to swim to and fro across the Bangla Channel.
Seventeen-year-old Sampanna Ramesh Shelar achieved this feat on March 30 by swimming 32.2km in nine hours and 10 minutes.
Ambitious young Shelar gave the credit for his extraordinary achievement to his coach.
As Shelar was in a celebratory mood post his current achievement, his coach, Jitendra Khasnin, believes this is just the beginning for Sampanna and soon, he will be able to set a new record by swimming across the most important and difficult channel of the world – the English Channel – and back.
For the past 13 years Shelar has been practising with Khasnin at a regional swimming club and the two share dreams of achieving some unexplored feats and titles for their country.
– Reuters