October 2017 - Diana Nyad Fact Check Annex

Diana’s GREAT Surprise, part 2: More Of Nyad’s Manhattan Effluent

The second of three entries examining Diana Nyad’s bizarre response to getting caught in her Manhattan lie.

Billions of Gallons of Sewage Can’t Be Wrong

I was in graduate school for Comparative Literature at NYU in 1975 and when I came back to school in the fall, after a summer on the world marathon swimming circuit, such as the annual swim across the Bay of Naples, from Capri to Naples, Italy...

Nyad may or may not have gone to NYU, but she did swim the Capri-Naples race in the summer of ’75. It would be her last time: she finished fourth of seven women, 14th overall—not the best evidence for her “greatest long-distance swimmer in the world” claim (see “The Best of the ’70s”).

Continue reading “Diana’s GREAT Surprise, part 2: More Of Nyad’s Manhattan Effluent”

Diana’s GREAT Surprise, part 1

The first of three entries examining Diana Nyad’s bizarre response to being caught in her Manhattan lie.

In 2011, CNN caught Diana Nyad lying about being the first woman to swim around Manhattan Island. In response, Nyad did not apologize for—nor even acknowledge—her deception. Instead, she posted a blog entry full of excuses, justifications, irrelevant information—and more lies.
Continue reading “Diana’s GREAT Surprise, part 1”

The Manhattan Project, part 2: Diana Nyad’s Titanium Cap of Will

Nyad’s “Fearless!” performance contained much of her usual crowd-pleasing poppycock, but she hit the mother lode with her original take on protective headgear.

Tom Terrific and his non-titanium thinking cap.

As per my previous post, Diana Nyad appeared on the New Yorker Festival’s Fearless!: Life on the Edge panel on Saturday, October 7. Except for her religious conversion (see below), I heard nothing new…with one important exception: Ms. Nyad’s “Titanium Cap of Will.”

All quotes below come from Nyad at Fearless!.
Continue reading “The Manhattan Project, part 2: Diana Nyad’s Titanium Cap of Will”

The Manhattan Project, part 1: Diana Nyad At The New Yorker Festival

Diana Nyad’s transparent and greedy Manhattan lie–“I was the first woman to swim around Manhattan Island”–gives us the key to understanding all of her deceptions.

Fearless fish and jelly.
Photo by Richard Wonka via Shutterstock

Diana Nyad returned to Manhattan on Saturday for the New Yorker Festival’s Fearless!: Life on the Edge. The panel — arranged by a highly respected magazine, occurring on the island of Nyad’s most obvious lie, and consisting of three genuine adventurers and one fraud — provided an indicator of the success of Nyad’s deceit. Despite her decades of deception, she took the stage unabashed. She recited stories that she has often parroted in other venues. Only a few in the audience knew that they sat in the presence of one of the greatest sports cheaters in history.
Continue reading “The Manhattan Project, part 1: Diana Nyad At The New Yorker Festival”

The Great Swim

A great read about the race to become the first woman to swim the English Channel, THE GREAT SWIM costars Mille Gade, 2nd to swim the channel (and to circle Manhattan). And then there are the touching bits.

The English Channel is the closest thing we have to a Mt. Everest of marathon swims, contrarians notwithstanding. I recently finished The Great Swim, a book about the summer of 1926, when four American women went to Europe, all wanting to become the first female to conquer their Everest. It’s a fascinating story well-told. The author, Gavin Mortimer, also writes of the aftermath—how being first nearly destroyed the life of the young and unworldly Gertrude Ederle.

Continue reading “The Great Swim”