Lynne Cox is a bold risk taker who has explored the far territories of human endurance. She is the world's most extraordinary long distance swimmer, and has repeatedly proved this in the coldest and most treacherous waterways of the world. Her natural exuberance and flair for the dramatic make her a uniquely inspiring speaker.

Audiences cheer Lynne's heroic story and marvel at the vital lessons learned from it. Blessed with few of the standard tools of athletic prowess, Lynne has relied on gritty dedication and an indomitable spirit to accomplish feats that are nearly unimaginable.

Her best-selling book, Swimming to Antarctica, appeared on many year-end lists, including Amazon's "Top Fifty Books of 2004" and Sports Illustrated's Best Sports Books of 2004. And her new book, Grayson, published by Knopf in 2006, is already a best-seller. 

• At age 15, Lynne broke the men's and women's records for her 33-mile swim of the English Channel
• At age 17, she shattered the men's record for swimming the Catalina Channel
• First woman to swim the Cook Strait in New Zealand, between the north and south islands
• She was the first person to swim Skagerrak, between Norway and Sweden
• First person to swim the shark-infested waters around Cape of Good Hope, Africa
• In 1987, she swam the Bering Strait, the channel that forms the boundary between Alaska and Siberia, opening the US-Soviet border for the first time in 48 years
• First person to swim the Strait of Magellan, reputedly the most treacherous 3-mile stretch of water in the world
• First person to swim Lake Titicaca (altitude: 12,500 feet) from Bolivia to Peru
• In 2002, she was the first person to swim more than a mile in 32 degree water to the ice-bound shore of Antarctica, where she was greeted by a flock of penguins
• And that's just the stuff that made the headlines. . . Audiences are equally inspired by the parts of Lynnes story not recorded in the record books:
• Being considered too plump to participate in sports (in point of fact, her female trait of evenly distributed body fat has been a key to her success)
• Training her body to tolerate many hours of freezing temperatures that might kill a normal person in a matter of minutes
• Persevering for 11 years in order to overcome a mountain of bureaucratic objections to her Bering Strait swim
• Her almost mystical ability to blend the functions of mind, body, and spirit

Named one of the notable women of 2003 by Glamour Magazine, Lynne has been featured on 60 Minutes, profiled in People and Biography, praised by Oliver Sacks and President Ronald Reagan, inducted into the Swimming Hall of Fame, and interviewed on numerous radio and TV programs. A documentary on her has been featured on the Discovery Channel.