GUWAHATI: Former international swimmer Elvis Ali Hazarika from Assam has scripted history by crossing the Catalina Channel in the US.
He is the first swimmer from the Northeast to achieve this feat. Swimming alongside Rimo Saha from West Bengal in a virtual relay, the 34-year-old Hazarika covered a distance of 40 km from the US to the shores of Mexico in 10 hours 59 minutes.
The swim began at Santa Catalina Island in the US and ended at Rancho Palos Verdes in Mexico. All along, he had to brave sharks and dolphins in the water channel.
Hazarika, who had swum 29km of the 34km English Channel in June last year, was invited by the Catalina Channel Swimming Foundation of Southern California.
The effort was in commemoration of 73rd Independence Day. It was also to pay tributes to two Guwahati youth from affluent families who were lynched in Assam’s Karbi Anglong district last year.
Abhijeet Nath and Nilotpal Das, both music enthusiasts, were brutally beaten to death by a mob which suspected them to be child-lifters.