London (AFP)

An American woman, a breast cancer survivor, became Tuesday the first person to swim across the English Channel four times in a row, a 54-hour performance.

Sarah Thomas, 37, from Colorado (western USA), arrived Tuesday morning in Dover, southern England, to the applause of a small group of people. "I feel a little sick," we hear on a video posted on Facebook.

The endurance swimmer made two round trips between Dover and Cap Gris-Nez, near Boulogne-sur-Mer (northern France).

Before embarking on this sporting adventure, Sarah Thomas had dedicated her exploit "to all survivors".

"It was for those of us who prayed for our lives, who wondered in desperation what was going to happen, who fought, in pain and fear, to win," she had published on Saturday. Facebook. His own cancer treatment ended a year ago.

When she arrived in Dover on Tuesday, she said in a hoarse voice to the BBC feeling "stunned" and "numb", adding that the salt water had burned her throat. She was also stung in the face by a jellyfish.

She thanked her support team, who fed her all along with electrolyte-rich drinks and a little caffeine. The drink was "tied to a rope, and it attracted (Sarah's) attention every 30 minutes to throw it," said his mother.

Endurance swimmer Lewis Pugh praised Twitter for an "extraordinary, brilliant and superhuman" performance. "Just when we think we have reached the limit of human endurance, someone breaks records," he said.

Before the exploit in the English Channel, Sarah Thomas had already swam nearly 167 km for 67 hours in Lake Champlain (northeastern United States) in 2017.

She thought then to be "at the peak of (s) achievements and (s) athletic achievements". "I thought I could really do everything I had in mind, I was planning for the future ... Then I was diagnosed with cancer," she testified in a video posted on a page from Fundraising for a documentary about it, entitled "The Other Side".

"Cancer infuses a fear that never goes away," said the American, but plans to cross the Channel four times made her stay on course in her fight against the disease.

"It was very important for me to have a goal and dreams beyond cancer."

A dream that goes back to childhood, tells the fighter, rocked by all these "people (who) said that swimming in the Channel (was) as hard as climbing Everest".

© 2019 AFP