Swimming 24h non-stop, 62 miles through Atlantic waters

Italian athlete Massimo Voltolina, 48, is getting ready to swim 100 kilometers (over 62 miles) across the Otranto channel with an estimated 100,000 strokes. Photographer Enzo Dal Verme has followed him.

Massimo began practicing sports at the age of thirty. He doesn’t follow a rigid training regimen and in spite of the fact that he’s not really trying to push his own limits, he is one of only two Italians who have swum the English Channel—naturally in the worst possible weather conditions and with one of the best times.

His next adventure, planned for September 2011, will be even more challenging. But he doesn’t have the air of someone who is about to undertake a titanic feat. The way he speaks about it so confidently and happily, it sounds like he’s just planning to take a spin around the block…
And can you blame him? For four years he has taken part in the Ironman Triathlon World Championship (the world’s premiere triathlon), swimming 3.8 kilometers, bicycling 180 and running over 42, and has won four medals.

Massimo will be followed by a team of specialists from the University of Parma coordinated by Prof. Marco Vitale and by a team from the University of Rome coordinated by Prof. Laura Capranica. Swimming day and night without rest will mean altering the sleep-waking cycle, subjecting his shoulder joint to some 100,000 revolutions and undertaking a physical test that will make demands on all his internal organs in a new and different way.

Photographer Enzo Dal Verme (Vanity Fair, l’Uomo Vogue, Marie Claire, Grazia, Elle, etc.) followed him in the Dolomites on his skiing and trekking training program. Photographed him cycling on precipitous mountain roads and kayaking in rough waters. Watched him swimming for hours in the frigid January seas of northern Italy. And interviewed him.

Read the story and see the images on Enzo Dal Verme’s blog:
http://www.enzodalverme.com/blog/2011/03/swimming-24h-non-stop/

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Enzo Dal Verme

Photographer

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