Bula Choudhury is a former national women's swimming champion of India. She is the first woman to cross seven seas. She twice swam the English Channel first in 1989 and again in 1999. She was awarded the Arjuna Award in 1990. She is now is planning to establish a swimming academy in Kolkata. She is a Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI(M)) legislator from Nandanpur in West Midnapore district in West Bengal. She was also awarded Padma Shri award.
KOLKATA: Bula Chowdhury on Friday became the first woman to conquer sea channels in five continents when she swam from Three Anchor Bay to Robben Islands near Cape Town, South Africa.
Thirty-five-year-old Bula clocked the 30 km distance in three hours and 26 minutes braving the icy waters.
Sahara India (Bula's employer) sources here said the ace swimmer started at 10 am (South Africa time) and completed the distance at 1.26 pm.
The timing was a record in itself as Bula became the first Asian woman to swim the stretch in such a short time, according to Sahara India.
Before leaving for South Africa, Bula had said: "I have chosen this spot because I want to pay my respects to Nelson Mandela who was kept imprisoned on Robben Islands."
In August last year, Bula become the first woman to cross the seven seas by crossing the Palk Straits from Talaimannar in Sri Lanka to Dhanushkodi in Tamil Nadu.
Among the water bodies she had earlier successfully covered are the English Channel, Catalina Bay, Cook Strait and Strait of Gibralter.
Bula, who had splashed across the national aquatic scene in the 1980s, had overcome several obstacles. She has been a fighter throughout her life.
Her father sent her to Srirampur in Hooghly district of West Bengal to attend swimming classes under Ila Paul, a swimmer of repute in those days.
Bula clawed her way up from small-town Hindmotors to Kolkata's pools at Beliaghata and College Square. From there to the state-of-the-art pools in the Asian circuit was but a small jump.
After ruling the South East Asian pools at the competitive level for over a decade, she took to the rough seas.
Bula started long distance swimming in 1989, when she was at the prime of short distance swimming and crossed the English Channel. She then proved her detractors wrong by winning six golds in the 1991 South Asian Federation (SAF) Games. In 1999 she crossed the English Channel again.
Achievements
Bula Chowdhury is an outstanding long-distance swimmer who has made her mark in competitive swimming as well. Bula came into spotlight when, in her first national competition at just 9 years of age, she dominated her age group by winning six gold medals in as many events.
In a career spanning 24 years, Bula has become the first woman in the world to have conquered the seven seas in five continents. She earned this distinction in August, 2004 by crossing the Palk Straits from Talaimannar in Sri Lanka to Dhanushkodi in Tamil Nadu in approximately 14 hours.
Bula swam the English Channel in 1989 and repeated the feat in 1999 to become the first Asian woman to swim the channel twice. She then went on a long-distance swimming spree to swim the Strait of Gibraltar in 2000, Tiranian Sea in Italy (2001), Great Toroneos Gulf in Greece (2002), Catalina Channel in the U.S. (2002) and Cooks Straits in New Zealand (2003).
Bula Chowdhary completed the swim through the Strait of Gibraltar in a world record time at 3 hours and 35 minutes. In 1990, she was awarded the Arjuna Award.
This is an article on her in Times Of India
KOLKATA: Bula Chowdhury on Friday became the first woman to conquer sea channels in five continents when she swam from Three Anchor Bay to Robben Islands near Cape Town, South Africa.
Thirty-five-year-old Bula clocked the 30 km distance in three hours and 26 minutes braving the icy waters.
Sahara India (Bula's employer) sources here said the ace swimmer started at 10 am (South Africa time) and completed the distance at 1.26 pm.
The timing was a record in itself as Bula became the first Asian woman to swim the stretch in such a short time, according to Sahara India.
Before leaving for South Africa, Bula had said: "I have chosen this spot because I want to pay my respects to Nelson Mandela who was kept imprisoned on Robben Islands."
In August last year, Bula become the first woman to cross the seven seas by crossing the Palk Straits from Talaimannar in Sri Lanka to Dhanushkodi in Tamil Nadu.
Among the water bodies she had earlier successfully covered are the English Channel, Catalina Bay, Cook Strait and Strait of Gibralter.
Bula, who had splashed across the national aquatic scene in the 1980s, had overcome several obstacles. She has been a fighter throughout her life.
Her father sent her to Srirampur in Hooghly district of West Bengal to attend swimming classes under Ila Paul, a swimmer of repute in those days.
Bula clawed her way up from small-town Hindmotors to Kolkata's pools at Beliaghata and College Square. From there to the state-of-the-art pools in the Asian circuit was but a small jump.
After ruling the South East Asian pools at the competitive level for over a decade, she took to the rough seas.
Bula started long distance swimming in 1989, when she was at the prime of short distance swimming and crossed the English Channel. She then proved her detractors wrong by winning six golds in the 1991 South Asian Federation (SAF) Games. In 1999 she crossed the English Channel again.
No comments:
Post a Comment