The great Atlantic Ocean swimming hoax

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Source: Unsure

Over the weekend, in between depressing news about the economy and the continued sagas of Michael Phelps and Alex Rodrgiuez, an inspirational story appeared on the Associated Press news wire. It detailed American Jennifer Figge's accomplishment in becoming the first woman to swim across the Atlantic Ocean. Many media outlets (including Yahoo!) jumped on the story that seemed almost too good to be true. That's because it was.

The AP originally reported that Figge swam from the Cape Verde Islands off the coast of Africa to Trinidad (2,100 miles) in 25 days while escorted by a boat. She was said to have rested every night and hopped back in the water in the morning.
...
The real issue stemmed from the fact that swimming 2,100 miles in 25 days is impossible. (Some newspapers picked up on this.) It's infinitely more impossible when somebody only spends 21 minutes swimming during one of those 25 days. Michael Phelps swimming his fastest would take about 20 days to cover that distance. And that's his fastest pace, sustained for three weeks, without ever stopping. Impossible.

Yet, somehow, the AP ran the story even though a few seconds of thought and a pocket calculator was enough to disprove it.
...
Her spokesman that her total swimming distance has not been calculated yet, but that due to ocean hazards including inclement weather, he estimates she swam about 250 miles.

Swimming 250 miles is nothing to scoff at; but it's not 2,100. To go back to the running-across-America analogy, this would be like driving cross country with a friend, and getting out of the car every ten miles to run one mile for the entire trip. That'd be an impressive feat, but nobody would ever confuse it with running across the United States.

Read more: http://sports.yahoo.com/olympics/beijing/blog/fourth_place_medal/post/The-great-Atlantic-Ocean-swimming-hoax?urn=oly,140525

[babylonsister]

1. I guess her 15 minutes of fame are up. I'm not surprised the AP

didn't bother to check the legitimacy of the story either.

[Connie_Corleone]

2. The AP has really gone in the toilet the past couple of years.

[Cha]

8. The good news is that..the more

they screw up their validity on stories like this ..the more people will question their blatant political bias.

[frylock]

15. they've been wallowing in the sewage for years

[SpiralHawk]

18. AP is definitely in the republicon propaganda camp

they jumped the truth shark a while back...alas for journalism and America.

[The_Casual_Observer]

3. Reading through this entire piece would be like .......

[theoldman]

4. If the story is too good to be true, it generally is not true.

[wroberts189]

5. thx

[Historic NY]

6. The "Weekly World News" was more accurate & believable...

:think: Did the alien visit Obama yet?

[DS1]

7. fishy

[benld74]

9. From the AP Wire - FLASH! WE WILL PRINT ANYTHING! Go AHEAD Try us!!!

[Soylent Brice]

10. hey AP! i have a bridge in Brooklyn for sale...

[EFerrari]

11. AP BUSTED for being sloppy? How is that possible?

[KamaAina]

12. You can't spell crap without AP

:eyes:

[Sultana]

24. I LOL'd

:D

[Blue_Tires]

13. i thought something was up...

damn...who is running things at the AP these days?

[muriel_volestrangler]

14. For all the posts here decrying AP, only one DUer seemed to pick up on when the story came out

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=3729110&mesg_id=3729366

quakerboy seems to be the only one who can say "why didn't AP spot this?" without using 20/20 hindsight.

[EFerrari]

16. Except some of us have picked up on cr@P from AP on other stories.

That's why this isn't surprising to me, anyway.

[WriteDown]

19. I was waiting for someone to point this out....

most posters fell for it hook, line, and sinker.

[tom_paine]

26. Many ignored it completely as the usual nonsensical fluff.

Hard to debunk a story if one hasn't even looked at it, let alone read it.

[AngryAmish]

17. I, for one, love hoaxes

You go girl.

[RandomKoolzip]

28. Me too! Hoaxes add interest and humor to everyday life

Where's Alan Abel all these years? Or Clifford Irving?

[DavidDvorkin]

20. So she's not a candidate for proving that women are the stronger sex?

She swam in the Atlantic, not across the Atlantic.

[Diclotican]

21. DavidDvorkin

DavidDvorkin

I am just a male, but I have swam _In_ the Atlantic too, as I have in the Meditarian, The North Sea and in the Black Sea.... But I would never claim that I had swimmed true the tre ocean, just becouse I have take a bath in the sea...

You se the point I made here I hope...?

Diclotican

SOrry my bad language, not my native language.

[DavidDvorkin]

23. Yes, exactly. That was my point.

[Psephos]

22. Innumeracy

There's even a (very good) book about it.

http://www.amazon.com/Innumeracy-Mathematical-Illiteracy-Its-Consequences/dp/0809058405/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1234388826&sr=8-1

[many a good man]

25. I didn't doubt it

I thought she was probably doing lots of bong hits and that made her able to keep up the Phelps-like pace.

[lumberjack_jeff]

27. The world record for *rowing* across the atlantic is 33 days.

Seems that rowing would be faster.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

29. I was skeptical from the beginning, remembering Rosie Rodriguez

(the woman who appeared to win the New York? Boston? marathon many years ago when she actually took the subway part of the way).

[ozu]

30. Rosie Ruiz

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosie_ruiz

It's so strange because if this swimming woman legitimately wanted to get away with such an outlandish claim, you'd think she might have pulled out a calculator and devised a bit more plausible timeline. Such a weird way to get attention.

[junior college]

31. I thought something was fishy

when in the original report they did say that one day she spent 21 minutes in the water. Apparently when she got back in the boat they fired up the motor. Here was a more legitimate attempt:

"Ben Lecomte, a French-born American, is just days away from entering the record books by swimming from America to France. His spokeswoman Colleen Turner said: "At his completion, he will have swum more than 3,726 statute miles, setting a world record for long-distance swimming." He has been swimming in two or three hour blocks, then sleeping and eating on the boat, which is left to drift when he is on board."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/178676.stm