<p>Bengaluru: Siddhartha Agarwal, at 49 years of age, became the oldest Indian to swim across the English Channel, achieving the feat on August 29.</p>.<p>Siddhartha took 15 hours and six minutes to swim across the 42km waterway.</p>.<p>The Bengaluru-based swimmer's quest to cross the Channel first began in 2018 when he swam the waterway as part of an eight-member relay team.</p>.At least 12 dead after boat carrying migrants capsizes in English Channel.<p>It was the same year when Srikaanth Viswanathan, also from Bengaluru, entered the record books for becoming the oldest to swim the English Channel solo at the age of 46.</p>.<p>"In 2017, during a casual swim in the pool, Satish Kumar (founder of Swim Life) presented me with the challenge of trying out open-water swimming, I accepted the idea. Little did I imagine then that I would end up swimming solo across the English Channel," said Siddhartha.</p>.<p>The last 10kms posed the greatest challenge to the swimmer as he had to battle rigid conditions and high tides.</p>.<p>"Until I actually completed the swim, I never believed that I could actually do this. It took me a while for it to sink in. What worked for me was that I trusted my coach, I believed in the process and just focused on what I needed to do that week and that month,” he said.</p>.<p>"The preparations started with 3km swims, at a pace of 2min 15secs per 100m. The distance would increase and the pace would reduce as we got closer to the date of the solo swim.</p>.<p>"(Coach) Satish was a real task master, his rules were simple: If you can't achieve that day's target of distance and pace, he would cancel out the enter session as invalid and start a fresh the following day," said Siddhartha of the preparations leading up to the solo swim. </p>
<p>Bengaluru: Siddhartha Agarwal, at 49 years of age, became the oldest Indian to swim across the English Channel, achieving the feat on August 29.</p>.<p>Siddhartha took 15 hours and six minutes to swim across the 42km waterway.</p>.<p>The Bengaluru-based swimmer's quest to cross the Channel first began in 2018 when he swam the waterway as part of an eight-member relay team.</p>.At least 12 dead after boat carrying migrants capsizes in English Channel.<p>It was the same year when Srikaanth Viswanathan, also from Bengaluru, entered the record books for becoming the oldest to swim the English Channel solo at the age of 46.</p>.<p>"In 2017, during a casual swim in the pool, Satish Kumar (founder of Swim Life) presented me with the challenge of trying out open-water swimming, I accepted the idea. Little did I imagine then that I would end up swimming solo across the English Channel," said Siddhartha.</p>.<p>The last 10kms posed the greatest challenge to the swimmer as he had to battle rigid conditions and high tides.</p>.<p>"Until I actually completed the swim, I never believed that I could actually do this. It took me a while for it to sink in. What worked for me was that I trusted my coach, I believed in the process and just focused on what I needed to do that week and that month,” he said.</p>.<p>"The preparations started with 3km swims, at a pace of 2min 15secs per 100m. The distance would increase and the pace would reduce as we got closer to the date of the solo swim.</p>.<p>"(Coach) Satish was a real task master, his rules were simple: If you can't achieve that day's target of distance and pace, he would cancel out the enter session as invalid and start a fresh the following day," said Siddhartha of the preparations leading up to the solo swim. </p>