Diana Nyad.

Diana Nyad is an American, author journalist and long-distance swimmer noted for her world record endurance championships.
Over two days in 1979, Nyad swam from Bimini to Florida, setting a distance record for non-stop swimming without a wetsuit that still stands today. She broke numerous world records, including the 45-year-old mark for circling Manhattan Island (7 hrs, 57 min) in 1975. She was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in 1986. Nyad was honored with her induction in the International Swimming Hall of Fame in 2003.[2]Diana Nyad announced Sunday morning August 7, 2011, at a Havana news conference, that she planned to enter the water at Havana's Marina Hemingway to begin her attempt. She entered the water later that evening at 7:45PM (Eastern) and began stroking for Florida. A news team from CNN was onboard her support ship and provided live coverage of her swim: CNN is the only major news organization that is covering the swim as it happens. Nyad stopped her attempt early in the morning on August 9 - at 12:45AM, exactly 29 hours in the water - after encountering strong currents and winds that pushed her miles off course (to the east). Nyad also said she had been suffering shoulder pain since her third hour in the water, but what made her abandon the effort was a flare-up of her asthma, such that, throughout the final hour, she could only swim a few strokes before repeatedly having to roll on her back to catch her breath. Nyad has assembled a team of 25 persons to support her during the swim. The people responsible for selecting the date to begin the swim are husband-and-wife scientists Dane and Jenifer Clark from Annapolis, Maryland. Dane is a meteorologist, Jenifer is a satellite oceanographer, and they are acknowledged as experts on Gulf Stream conditions. Her physician during training and accompanying her on the swim is Dr. Michael S. Broder. The Clarks will analyze satellite weather and ocean data to select the best three-day "window of opportunity" to find the right combination of favorable winds and the warmest water temperatures. Nyad wrote in her blog that Gulf water temperatures had been rising steadily through early July 2011, but that as of 11 July had tapered off at 84 degrees, and she required a minimum of 86 degrees, with even warmer water inside the Gulf Stream current, to begin her swim.Nyad had to give up her swim on August 9th. After the aborted effort, Nyad was quoted as saying, "I may have ended this swim, but I'll never give up diving.