Navi Mumbai: Twenty-one-year-old Navi Mumbai resident Anshuman Jhingran, an ex-student of Father Agnel School, Vashi, and a third-year degree student of Rayat Shikshan Sanstha’s Karmaveer Bhaurao Patil College, Vashi, crossed the Tsugaru Channel in Japan on June 30, becoming the youngest male swimmer in the world to swim across the Seven Oceans, which has been a dream for every open-water long-distance swimmer across the globe. With this feat, he also became the third Indian after Rohan More of Pune and Prabhat Koli of Navi Mumbai to accomplish the Seven Oceans Challenge. Starting from Honshu in Nakadomari province, Jhingran crossed the cold waters of the Tsugaru Strait to reach Hokkaido in 12 hours and 39 minutes. He was accompanied by his coach Rutuja Udeshi and his mother Kiran Jhingran with the team of support staff. The swim faced delays after an earthquake and tsunami warning in Japan a few days earlier.After receiving the green signal from the Tsugaru Channel Swimming Association, the monitoring authority, to swim on June 30, he began at dawn. “After the first few hours, I encountered extremely cold water and battled severe hypothermia, taking a longer route of almost 50km to swim the channel, which is originally about 30km in length. It was quite a challenging task as the weather remained unfavourable. Later, my happiness index reached another peak after etching my name in swimming history,” said an elated Jhingran.The crossing completed his quest to swim the proverbial 7 Oceans, which is considered equivalent to Seven Summits in mountaineering. He was the third Indian to complete the challenge after Rohan More and Prabhat Koli. Prabhat Koli held the record for being the youngest male to complete the challenge at the age of 23. Apart from his 7 Ocean Swim Challenge, he also successfully tried his hand in swimming 10 open-sea routes, including the Palk Strait, connecting India with Sri Lanka.
