Timeline:
Continue reading “Diana Nyad Historical Marker timeline”
Diana Nyad Historical Marker timeline
Update 26 June 2018: Fort Lauderdale’s Parks, Recreation and Beaches Advisory Board voted to withdraw its support of the marker.
Annex Update: “The Sea Spoils a Dream,” Nyad Rakes in the Spoils, and a Runt Spoils for a Fight
I recently stumbled on Wendy Lawrence’s 1978 article about Nyad’s first Cuba-Florida attempt: “The Sea Spoils a Dream.” My favorite bit is the photo below. It shows Olympic gold medalist Donna de Varona and others at the end of the adventure.
Some other things we’ve been doing here at the Annex:
Continue reading “Annex Update: “The Sea Spoils a Dream,” Nyad Rakes in the Spoils, and a Runt Spoils for a Fight”
The Captain and Diana
In 1875, Captain Matthew Webb became the first human to swim across the English Channel. One hundred years later, the Channel Swimming Association published the Centenary edition of their Channel Swimming Handbook. Diana Nyad didn’t like some of the facts it cites, so she made up alternative ones.
Update 22 Feb 2021: Added that Webb attempted to cross the Niagara River below the falls, not above them (thanks to information provided by a well-informed reader).
In the summer of 1976, Diana Nyad flies to England…
happily accompanied by my two closest friends . . . and by an American film crew of seven. We were off to make, assist, and record history. I was attempting to become the first woman to complete the double crossing of the English Channel. (Other Shores, 1978, p. 121)
During the flight, Nyad reads the Channel Swimming Association (CSA) handbook. “Who knows the story of Captain Matthew Webb . . . ?” she paraphrases:
Webb was the first to swim across. . . . Some weeks later Webb tried to cross the Niagara River four hundred meters above the falls; he is buried at the bottom. (p. 122)
The way Nyad describes it, Webb barely had time to dry off before steaming across the Atlantic. Once in the U.S., he’d have to race for Niagara and immediately jump back in the water.
Going Drogue
In these tumultuous times, we all need something to hang onto.
drogue: a device, typically conical or funnel-shaped with open ends, towed behind a boat, aircraft, or other moving object to reduce speed or improve stability.
I had thought that during her Cuba-to-Florida crossing, Diana Nyad rested in one of two ways: she held onto (or hooked onto) her “directional streamer,” or she snoozed on the boat, possibly while someone swam in her place. Maybe both.
But Nyad’s guide boat just dragged another option into the picture. Once you see it, you’ll grasp the possibilities immediately.
NYAD’S LIES, PART 3: An Expert Planter of Beliefs — Diana Nyad, Con Artist
Diana Nyad gets away with telling and selling lies because she’s a con woman. She’s such a good one that she duped Michael Shermer, the founder of The Skeptics Society. In this last of three posts about Diana’s lies, we’ll look at how she gets away with telling so many of them.
Skeptics Society founder Michael Shermer reviewed Diana Nyad’s 2015 memoir, Find A Way, for the Wall St. Journal. Plenty of folks had questioned Nyad’s honesty by that time. But Shermer, who makes his living as a skeptic, didn’t betray a drop of doubt. He accepted Find A Way as gospel, going so far as to crown Diana Nyad “the greatest long-distance swimmer in the history of the sport.”¹
[See Unrealiable Natator for an annotated list of lies in Find A Way.]
According to the Skeptics Society’s website, part of the organization’s purpose is to investigate “the paranormal, fringe science, pseudoscience, and extraordinary claims of all kinds” (my italics). So, how could a skeptic’s skeptic miss Nyad’s deception?
For two reasons:
Continue reading “NYAD’S LIES, PART 3: An Expert Planter of Beliefs — Diana Nyad, Con Artist”
NYAD’S LIES, PART 2: Obviously the Greatest — Diana Nyad and Narcissistic Personality Disorder
In this second of three posts about Diana’s deceptions, we’ll look at why she can’t stop making stuff up.
We know that Diana Nyad lies. She lies frequently, brazenly, and — in all likelihood — compulsively. But why?
She lies because she can’t live without adoration. To receive that adoration, Nyad must be the best — must be “epic” — at everything she does. She must swim epically, play squash epically, even wake up epically.
But no one can be epic at everything, so Nyad must act and write and talk as if she is.
Above: Diana Nyad’s favorite word. With Marcia Cross at LiveTalksLA
Why does she need so much adoration? Maria Konnikova — journalist, professional poker player, and holder of a psychology PhD from Harvard — provides the answer in her 2011 article “Less Than Artful Choices: Narcissistic Personality Disorder According to Donald Trump.” Konnikova compares the utterances of the not-yet-president Donald Trump to the diagnostic criteria for Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD).* You can plug in “Nyad” wherever you see “Trump,” and, voilá, the story still works.
*As per the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) of the American Psychiatric Association.
NYAD’S LIES, PART 1: From Bimini to the Big Apple — the Lies in Find a Way
“We are believers,” Diana Nyad declares on the first page of Find A Way. This post is the first in a three-part series about what Diana Nyad wants us to believe, why she wants us to believe it, and how she keeps us believing despite nearly half a century of deception.
[NOTE: For a more extensive rummage through the lies in Diana Nyad’s memoir, please see “Unreliable Natator: Omissions, Exaggerations, and Lies in Diana Nyad’s Find a Way.”]
Diana Nyad loves to tell stories. She loves to tell stories about big things (“I was the first woman to swim around Manhattan”) and little things (“Margie and I . . . started eating all our dinners in Miami at Benihana”) and all sorts of things in between.
You’ll find a theme here and throughout all of Nyad’s deceptions: she will say or do whatever she thinks will enhance her public image. She will distort the truth, ignore the rules, and slander other swimmers. She will diminish or disregard the achievements of other marathoners while claiming those achievements as her own. It’s all okay in her book as long as it furthers the cause: the deification of Diana Nyad.
Continue reading “NYAD’S LIES, PART 1: From Bimini to the Big Apple — the Lies in Find a Way”
FIND A PATHOLOGY: Diana Nyad’s Next Book?
Diana Nyad says her next book might be about people with pathological personalities. She has a subject close at hand.
Last week, Diana Nyad appeared on Capital Public Radio’s “Insight with Beth Ruyak.” The interview’s most fascinating bit of news: Nyad said that she’s “probably going to be writing a book this next year about all these myriad syndromes…that come about.”
What does she mean by “all these myriad syndromes”? All I can say is that Diana has pathologies (myriad syndromes?) on her mind.
Continue reading “FIND A PATHOLOGY: Diana Nyad’s Next Book?”
No Syrup, No Swimmer
Without Mrs. Winslow’s Soothing Syrup and the fortune it generated, Diana Nyad would not exist.
“The Curtis family,” wrote Diana Nyad in her 2015 memoir, Find A Way,
had come from a century-old successful clan of New Yorkers, starting back in the early 1800s with the first Lucy Winslow, one of the first female physicians in Manhattan. (p. 36)
But Lucy Winslow, Nyad’s great-great-grandmother, came from Maine, didn’t move to New York until the mid-1800s, and was not a physician.
But Miss Lucy Winslow was not the Mrs. Winslow of soothing syrup fame. Diana confused Lucy with her mom. Before I explain, we’ll need a bit more background from Find a Way:
Continue reading “No Syrup, No Swimmer”
How to Prove that You Swam 100+ Miles
Are you interested in proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that you completed a very long swim? Then you’ve come to the right place!
Diana Nyad says she swam 110 miles from Cuba to Florida. Sarah Thomas asserts that she swam 104 miles in Lake Champlain.
Before you attempt to join the 100-mile club, use this handy chart to compare how these two very different athletes supported their claims.
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