56-year-old Bao Zhengbin ended his journey at Chongming Island
The man who decided to swim all the way from Wuhan to the Shanghai Expo (a 1200 kilometer journey) has actually made it after 33 days.
56-year-old Bao Zhengbin ended his journey at Chongming Island, arriving around 8am on August 8, 2010 at Chongming Island's Southern Gate. He was greeted by enthusiastic crowds both from his hometown in Hubei Province and some Shanghai fans as well. The entire journey took 33 days.
Upon reaching the shore, he yelled out "Shanghai, I've come!" to the cheering masses. His trip, which began in Wuhan on July 7 took him about 40km for four hours of swimming each day. he clocked in at an incredibly impressive 10km per hour.
Along the way, he dealt with quite a few hardships - including the constant rain turning the river cold and the subsequent flooding.
Bao's next target, now that he's realized his childhood dream of swimming to Shanghai, is three-fold: He'd like to cross the world's longest canal - North America's Mississippi River; he'd like to take a non-stop three-day-three-night swim across the Taiwan Strait, and he wants to break a 50-hour long distance swimming world record first set by swimmer Zhang Jian in the Bohai Sea.
