Where is Diana Nyad now? Swimmer's whereabouts amid Netflix movie
The Netflix movie has reignited controversy over the athlete's famous swim from Cuba to Florida.
Netflix is set to release a sports biopic about endurance swimmer Diana Nyad.
Nyad, who will be played by four-time Oscar nominee Annette Bening, was at the peak of her athletic career in the 1970s and broke numerous world records, including a 102-mile swim from Bimini, in the Bahamas, to Juno Beach, Florida, in 1979.
She then retired from competitive swimming for good and spent the next 30 years working as a sports reporter.
But in early 2010, as she turned 60 – which is the point at which the film begins – Nyad decided to return to the pool to train for the epic 110-mile swim from Cuba to Florida.
It was a lifelong dream that she was done with putting off, but one that many didn't think was possible, including her best friend Bonnie Stoll (played by Jodie Foster), who Nyad eventually convinced not only to support her, but become her coach.
Directed by Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin (Free Solo), Nyad depicts the gruelling training and physical and mental challenges – from fatigue and deadly currents to agonising jellyfish stings – that the athlete overcame to achieve the absurd feat in 2013, after four previous attempts.
So, who is Diana Nyad and where is she now? Read on for everything you need to know about the athlete.
Who is Diana Nyad?
Nyad became a familiar figure in the mid-1970s when she swam 28 miles around Manhattan.
In 1979, she set a record in distance swimming over open water – for men and women – swimming 102 miles from North Bimini in the Bahamas to Juno Beach in Florida in 27 hours and 30 minutes.
The year before, Nyad had attempted to swim from Havana, Cuba, to Key West in Florida in a protective cage, but gave up after about 76 miles due to dangerous weather and sea conditions.
At the age of 30, Nyad retired completely and spent the next three decades working as a sports reporter.
But in early 2010, as she turned 60, she returned to the pool with the hope of achieving her lifelong goal: to swim the 110-mile journey from Cuba to Florida unassisted.
Having previously attempted the swim in 1979, Nyad made four further efforts to cross the water from 2011, before finally achieving her goal in 2013 - following a 53-hour swim.
Where is Diana Nyad now?
In 2022, Nyad founded EverWalk alongside her friend Bonnie, an initiative designed to get more people walking and talking.
Speaking about the initiative at the time, Nyad told Philly Mag: "When Bonnie and I finished the Cuba swim at long last... that was a unique endeavor; no one’s ever done it.
"And I’m not sure anybody will do it again, it’s truly of that sort of stature, but we were so high on the purpose of it and the team of it.
"We used to talk about swimming over the entire curvature of the earth and taking in this blue jewel of a planet as ours.
"As much as that would be tough physical stuff, you can’t help but start reflecting on what’s going to be the future of the earth’s oceans, what’s going to be the future of your life."
She continued: "If you and I took a walk and looked up at the trees, the horizon, the sky, the blue jewel of the planet, sky instead of the sea, chances are we would come across deeper things than if we just chatted.
"Some of the great minds in history, from Steve Jobs to [Henry David] Thoreau to Charles Dickens, they walked to think. They walked to talk. Nietzsche was a big walker.
"They found that the endorphins of walking and being able to gaze far away at the horizon, instead of being stopped by your screen where you’re only seeing six inches, 12 inches in front of you, is very freeing."
The release of Nyad has reignited controversy over Nyad’s famous swim from Cuba to Florida.
Nyad’s success in 2013 was so extraordinary that some critics had doubts, with questions raised over the authenticity of her claim.
Two people had completed the challenge before – 65-year-old Walter Poenisch in 1978 and 22-year-old Susie Maroney in 1997 – but both had used protective cages, while Poenisch had also used a snorkel and fins.
Nyad is a somewhat divisive figure among endurance swimmers thanks to her long history of exaggerations, and has been described as "a self-aggrandizing scourge of the marathon swimming community".
According to the LA Times, exaggerations include repeated claims that she finished sixth at the 1968 Olympic trials and broke the world record in 100-metre backstroke, neither of which happened.
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The publication also reports that she claimed to be "the first woman to swim around Manhattan" in her 2015 memoir when, in fact, she was the seventh.
"There’s braggadocio, which is more about attitude, and then there are misstatements," Nyad told the publication in response.
"I can look back and wish I had evolved in so many ways. Am I embarrassed to have inflated my own record when my record is pretty good on its own? Yes, it makes me cringe.
"Some of those statements are 45 years old — there wasn’t even an internet then. But I’m human and I like to think that I’ve lived a life that now makes me proud of who I am."
Regarding her swim from Cuba to Florida, sceptics questioned why her speed had surged around 31 hours into the swim, and why the whole attempt wasn’t recorded on video, as well as Nyad's use of a specially designed protective suit and mask to protect against sea creatures, which some argued made the swim assisted.
However, Nyad’s team later attributed her surge in speed to the fast-moving Gulf Stream flowing in her favour.
Nyad also defended her 110-mile feat, telling the BBC: "I swam. We made it, our team, from the rocks of Cuba to the beach of Florida, in squeaky-clean, ethical fashion."
The Marathon Swimmers Federation also backed Nyad and said there's no evidence of cheating during the Cuba swim.
Nyad will become available on Netflix on 20th October 2023 – Sign up for Netflix from £4.99 a month. Netflix is also available on Sky Glass and Virgin Media Stream.
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