Cox Defrosts Relations in a 7-Mile Swim

Old Glory flew between two Soviet flags, and an American played, “America the Beautiful,” on his clarinet when Lynne Cox brought Glasnost to this Siberian village on Lake Baikal Friday.

The 31-year-old woman from Los Alamitos became the first person to swim the lake for a significant distance or length of time. She negotiated a 7-mile course in 4 hours 19 minutes 18 seconds as about 3,000 local citizens cheered her into shore.

Allowing for the strong current caused by the world’s deepest lake draining into the Angara River, its only outlet, Cox estimated she actually swam about 10 miles.

She started swimming at 7:51 a.m. (3:51 p.m., PDT, Thursday) directly into the rising sun from the unnamed cape that will now bear her name--a signal honor for a foreigner in Siberia.

She was escorted by three trawlers, four small motor boats, a local youth rowing club in a dory, navigator Ross Roseman of Seattle paddling a sailboard, and Soviet state swim Coach Vitaly Medyanikov, rowing a boat, with Sports Committee interpreter Elena Mineeva aboard with a hand-held radio.

The flotilla was well-organized and efficient, despite Cox’s moving the swim up two days when a heavy storm was forecast for the weekend.

Her most difficult moments, she said, were one-half hour into the swim when her right leg cramped and then an hour later when she entered the Angara current. She trailed the leg stiff behind her until the cramp disappeared, but the battle was far from over.

“We got a good current coming offshore,” she said, “When we got to the Angara River, it was like a treadmill.

“When we got across that, there was another current taking us out. There were different currents and different temperatures.”

The water temperature varied from 53.6 to 56 degrees, warmer than anticipated and generally warmer than during her only two workouts in the lake.

As far as any of the locals know, nobody had ever spent as long as an hour in the lake, and nothing even that long is documented. She maintained a rate of 60 to 68 strokes a minute, picking it up first when she was fighting the current, then again near shore when she sprinted.

Approaching this village on the eastern shore, she said her spirits soared.

“I could see people putting their kids on their shoulders and women in babushkas, everybody clapping and waving,” she said. “It was great. I think this swim opened the door further.”

Cox admitted afterward that she had been quite apprehensive.

“I expected colder water, and knowing the weather was supposed to change . . . Sure, I was concerned.”

It wasn’t as cold as on her historic Bering Strait swim a year ago, when the water dropped from 43 to 38 degrees near the end. But this was much longer than that swim, which was only 2.7 miles and required just 2 hours 6 minutes.

As a precaution Friday, she was placed happily in an ambulance after completing her swim. She emerged 20 minutes later, tired but smiling.

“My arms, my back, everything was sore,” she said.

Although Soviet officials provided the American flags, Paul Winter of Litchfield, Conn., showed up out of nowhere playing his clarinet.

“I’m making an album about Baikal,” he said. “I just got here this morning and found out about this.” The crowd applauded him, too.

Cox overallowed for the current and overstood her landing point, located at some steps leading up the seawall to a road.

As she veered left 100 yards from shore to swim a half-mile down the beach, the crowd moved with her, chanting in English, “All right, Lynne Cox,” and probably telling their children that this was a day to remember.