How old was Diana Nyad when she began swimming competitively? She started in junior high, so 11 or 12. However, she seems to have decided at some point that younger is better.
12
Diana Nyad met [Jack Nelson, her geography teacher and swim coach] at an impressionable time. She was a seventh-grader, 12 years old.
Sports Illustrated, “She Takes A Long Swim Off A Short Pier,” 6 Dec 1971.
11
When I was 11 years old and in the seventh grade, the geography teacher [Nelson] said that anyone who came out for the junior high swimming team would get an A in geography.
Other Shores, 1978, p. 17.
10
It wasn’t too long after Aris showed me my name in the dictionary that my elementary school geography teacher, a former Olympic swimmer, promised that any kid who came out for the swim team would get an A in geography. . . . From those early childhood days—that first day in the pool at age ten . . .
Find a Way, 2015, p. 43.
9
And by the age of nine, I was a little champion swimmer.
Safety Culture Summit, 27 Oct 2021, 12:37.
Correction: Nyad begins the Safety Culture Summit program with the “just seven” clip below. So the lie isn’t about when she began but about becoming a champion two or three years before she began. Nyad’s first published meet result—a 3rd place in the 200 IM in 3-way junior high meet—comes from October 1961, after she’d turned 12.
8
…eight hours a day when you’re eight, nine and 10 years old.
The Roseanne Show #15, 3 October 1998, 18:30.
7
Diana Nyad started as a competitive swimmer at just seven.
Date uncertain. By 2021, Diana was opening many of her presentations with the “just seven” clip.