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American endurance swimmer Diana Nyad faced down box jellyfish, cold and extreme fatigue to become the first person to swim from Cuba to Florida without a shark cage for protection, in 2013. She was 64 and had always been drawn by intense, seemingly unachievable feats of marathon swimming. It was after shooting to fame for swimming round the island of Manhattan in the 1970s that Diana first seized on an idea that had been planted in her head in childhood: she would swim the 112 miles from Cuba to Florida's Key West. Five attempts and more than thirty years later, she finally succeeded, wobbling unsteadily up the beach after nearly 53 hours in the water to tell a cheering crowd, "never, ever give up... you are never too old to chase your dreams."

Archive from Diana's swimming and broadcasting careers appears courtesy of: Florida Keys TV; The Wolfson Archives, Miami Dade College; PBS; FOX Sports; ABC; Courage to Succeed (1977).

This programme has been re-edited and corrected since first published.

Presenter: Asya Fouks
Producer: Saskia Edwards and Laura Thomas

(Photo: Diana Nyad. Credit: Walter Michot/Miami Herald/Tribune News Service/Getty Images)