by Graham Tutthill

A woman from Cork has become the first Irish person to complete a two-way Channel swim. But it took her more than 35 hours.

Lisa Cummins, 26, from Blackrock, set off from Dover on Saturday morning and reached the French coast in 14 hours 36 minutes.

Then she got back into the water for the return crossing. But the currents took her off course and it wasn't until on Sunday night that she managed to clamber ashore south of Dungeness.

What made the swim even more remarkable was that she had not swum the Channel before. Most of those who have attempted two-way swims have usually completed a one-way crossing first, and then set their sights on a two-way crossing some time in the future.

A postgraduate student at University College in Cork, Lisa is working towards a Ph.D. in computer science.

When she first decided to make the attempt, she said she wasn't sure why.

"It's a huge challenge," she said. "And I love a challenge! It would be amazing to finish it, to swim from one country to another across one of the toughest sections of sea to swim in the world and then manage to turn around and swim back.

"The English Channel is known as the Mount Everest of open-water swimming and I want to be one of the few people who conquers it!

"There are so many factors that make this swim such a challenge. But what's life without a challenge?"

The fastest two-way swim was by Australian Susie Maroney who completed it in 17 hours 14 minutes in 1991 and the longest was by Antonio Abertondo, from Argentina, who took 43 hours 10 minutes in 1961.