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Pugh will be the guinea pig
02/03/2006 17:42 - (SA)
Cape Town - The science of cold-water swimming is set to be tested in Finland this week - with Cape cold-water swimming sensation Lewis Gordon Pugh as the "guinea pig".
The swimmer, wearing just a Speedo, cap and goggles in accordance with English Channel Swimming Association rules, recently became the first person to complete a long distance swim in both the frozen waters of the Arctic and the Antarctic.
Now scientists, in a co-operation that shall link ice-cold Finland with sunny South Africa will pit the Cape record holder against Russian and Finnish swimmers who are in Finland for the World Winter Swimming Championships, with science definitely expected to emerge as the winner.
At stake is the bid by the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health in Oulu to take further the findings by South African sports science icon Professor Tim Noakes, of the Sports Science Institute of South Africa, which he has dubbed "anticipatory thermogenesis".
Accompanying Pugh on his long-distance swims in the Arctic and off Antarctica last year, Noakes determined that Pugh has a unique ability to raise his body temperature to nearly 39 deg C, just by visualising the swim ahead of him.
Unique opportunity
Dr Juha Oksa, a specialised research scientist at the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health has hailed the chance to study the Cape swimmer alongside Russian and Finnish competitors at the Winter Championships as "a real coup".
"Having Lewis here gives us the unique opportunity to make further headway on this and other sports science experiments that have already turned up fascinating findings," he said.
An excited Pugh said he hoped Thursday's tests in Oulu, Finland, would prove Noakes's theory "beyond all reasonable doubt".
A second of Noakes's theories will also be put to the test, one he calls REC, or Respiratory Expulsion of Cold.
Noakes was intrigued by the fact that as long as one hour after Pugh's Antarctic swim in December 2005, in 0 deg C water, he was breathing out ice cold air, despite the fact that his core body temperature had returned to normal.
Exposed to extreme cold
"We know that when people exercise in hot conditions, the lungs are a way to get rid of that heat and keep the core body temperature within safe limits. I suspect the same applies when a human is exposed to extreme cold.
The body expels cold air from the lungs to try and raise the core body temperature to within safe parameters," Noakes said.
Lewis recently became the first person to complete a long distance swim in all five oceans of the world, a feat which many had considered to be the "Holy Grail" of swimming. His latest training for the World Winter Swimming Championships has been in icy lake water on Mount Snowdon in Wales.
"It's extremely exciting to be pushing my own limits, but also to be able to contribute to science that will have an impact not only on future swimmers, but also I hope on water safety," Pugh said.
- SAPA
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