Bronze medal for Bradley

Coming home with a bronze medal, local Peta Bradley is making waves in “ice swimming” - a sport that seems otherworldly in Australia’s current climate.

This courageous athlete has just wrapped-up her win at the fifth Ice Swimming World Championships, held in wintry Samoëns, France, where courage-under-fire is a real test of one’s mettle.

Qualification for the championships involved an almostunbelievable “ice mile”, which is a 1.6km swim in near-freezing 3.5 degree celsius waters that was held in September of last year. From there, Ms Bradley went on to compete in the “ice kilometre”; the 500-metre freestyle; and the 50-metre butterfly, at the championships.

Heats of the “ice kilometre” had Peta in the final with the second fastest time of 15:45:97. She then went on to place third in the 500-metre freestyle finals, making herself and her support team beyond proud. She completed the 500 metres in eight minutes and 40 seconds.

But the question we’re all asking - how can someone train for a sport like ice swimming in western NSW?

Well, Ms Bradley assured that lots of pool sets combined with plenty of ice baths had her body prepared as best as she could before flying-over to the icy north.

She managed to head first to snowy Finland and Denmark ahead of the championships, where she could acclimatise and chase some real cold water in preparation.

Ms Bradley is currently making her way back to the much warmer western plains, and The Gilgandra Weekly will catch up with the world champion in due course.