Open-water endurance swimmer Lewis Pugh (UK) became the first person to venture into meltwater beneath the ice sheet of Antarctica on 23 January 2020. Wearing nothing but swimming trunks, cap and goggles, Pugh swam approximately 1 kilometre (0.62 miles) down what is known as a “subglacial river†located near the Russian Novolazarevskaya research station in East Antarctica, in water that was as cold as 0.1 degrees Celsius (32.18 degrees Fahrenheit). The swim, which included passing through a glacial tunnel with ice stalactites and terminated in a “supraglacial river†(i.e., on top of the glacier), lasted for 10 minutes 17 seconds in all.
