Diana Nyad's Fourth Attempt to Swim From Cuba Has Ended
Well, this is a downer. Plagued by storms and choppy water, Diana Nyad, the 62-year-old journalist-author-long distance-swimmer has abandoned her historic attempt to swim from Cuba to Florida today. Nyad was trying to be the first person to swim from Cuba to Florida without a shark cage, and had spent nearly 60 hours in the water before giving up Tuesday. This was her fourth attempt.
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As ABC News' Matt Gutman reports, Nyad was pulled from the water this morning and that "team members said she had been struck four times by jellyfish stings during her voyage." Adding to those stings was uncooperative weather: "Overnight Ms. Nyad's team had reported that they had been held up by a squall," The BBC reports, while The Associated Press notes that last night's storms cost her about six hours of progress. CNN is also reporting that Nyad's team said the swim was called off because it was life-threatening. What makes this all sadder (we were rooting for her), is that Nyad was expected to arrive at the Florida Keys this morning (she was about 50 miles away from the Keys this morning), one day before her 63rd birthday.
