Diana Nyad

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Diana Nyad bigraphy, stories - American journalist

Diana Nyad : biography

August 22, 1949 –

Diana Nyad (born August 22, 1949) is an American author, journalist, and long-distance swimmer noted for her world-record endurance championships. She was once ranked 30th among U.S. women squash players.Ahead of Their Time: A Biographical Dictionary of Risk-Taking Women, Diana Sneed Nyad pp. 245-47.

She provides a weekly five-minute radio piece on sports for KCRW called The Score (heard during KCRW’s broadcast of NPR’s "All Things Considered"), as well as for the Marketplace radio program. She formerly hosted the public radio program "The Savvy Traveler."

Nyad graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Lake Forest College in 1973.

In 2009 she narrated the documentary Training Rules.

On July 8, 2011, the U.S. gay sports website CompeteNetwork reported on her plans for the 2011 Cuba-to-Florida swim, writing that "(the) amazing Diana Nyad is a living legend in the swim world, and a role model for the GLBT community…"http://www.competenetwork.com/blogs/696-swim-legend-diana-nyad-to-swim-from-cuba-to-florida; posted Friday July 8, 2011 at 12:33; accessed July 18, 2011. Nyad is openly lesbian.

In September 2011, Nyad announced that she would attempt the Cuba-to-Florida swim again in 2012.

In 2011 she told a reporter that, in contrast to her youth, her drive as a swimmer is no longer propelled by attempts to work through the anger manifest from sexual abuse she suffered as a teenager.

In 2011, she gave a talk at TEDMED.

In 2012, she was the subject of the short documentary "Diana" by the digital channel WIGS.http://diananyad.com/diana-a-wigsreal-documentary-now-playing/

Career

Diana Nyad has authored three books, Other Shores (Random House: September 1978) about her life and distance swimming, Basic Training for Women (Harmony Books: 1981), and in 1999 she wrote a biography of an NFL wide-receiver Boss of Me: The Keyshawn Johnson Story. She has also written for The New York Times, Newsweek magazine, and other publications. Diana and her best friend Bonnie Stoll (former #3 in the world on the Pro Racquetball Tour) have formed a company called BravaBody which is aimed at providing online exercise advice to women over 40, with the two world-class athletes giving direct inspiration and custom-made work-outs.http://www.goldstars.com/speakers/nyad_diana.html; Gold Stars Speakers Bureau, bio for Diana Nyad; accessed July 18, 2011. As of 2006, she also delivered motivational talks to groups through the Gold Star speakers agency, for a fee of between $10,000 to $15,000. As of 2006, she was a (long-time) weekly contributor to National Public Radio’s afternoon news show All Things Considered (appearing on Thursdays), as well as the "business of sport" commentator for American Public Media’s public radio program Marketplace business news. She was also a regular contributor to the CBS News television show Sunday Morning.

In her 1978 autobiography Nyad described marathon swimming as a battle for survival against a brutal foe — the sea — and the only victory possible is to "touch the other shore."

An analysis of Nyad’s ability to dissociate during her marathon swims is covered by James W. Pipkin.

Early years

Nyad was born in New York City on August 22, 1949 to stockbroker William Sneed and his wife Lucy Curtis. Her father died when she was three and her mother soon remarried Aristotle Nyad, a Greek land developer, who adopted Diana.

The family then moved to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, where she grew up and began swimming seriously in grade seven. She was enrolled at the elite Pine Crest School in the mid-1960s, swimming under the tutelage of Olympian (and Hall of Fame) coach Jack Nelson. Before graduating she won three Florida state high school championships in the Backstroke at 100 and 200 yards (91 and 183m).http://www.browardpalmbeach.com/2007-06-14/news/jack-and-diana/2/| Broward-Palm Beach New Times, June 14, 2004, "Jack and Diana"; accessed July 19, 2011. She dreamed of swimming in the 1968 Summer Olympics, but in 1966 she spent three months in bed with endocarditis, an infection of the heart, and when she began swimming again she had lost her speed.