Walliams completes Channel swim

David Walliams successfully swam the Channel
11 April 2012
The Weekender

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Little Britain star David Walliams has completed his cross-Channel swim

The comedian spent 10 hours and 34 minutes in cold water to complete the swim - which he hopes will raise more than £500,000 for Sport Relief.

Speaking live from the boat back to Dover, Walliams said he was shocked to discover his time had put him in the top 50 channel swimmers.

He said: "I've been told that my time puts me in with the top 50 Channel swimmers of all time, how did that happen?

"I've never done anything sporty before, I don't know what happened. I think it must be all the good vibes.

"I did it much faster than I thought, I thought I would do it in about 14 hours.

"I feel relieved, I felt there needed to be a happy ending to this story and there is."

Walliams added he was "surprised" when he was told he had reached the halfway point, and the news had "really cheered me up".

The star said he had entertained himself through the gruelling swim by thinking of pop songs.

He said: "I was thinking about lots of Pet Shop Boys songs, Morrissey song and Abba songs, it helped to calm me down.

"I was also being told how many text messages had come in supporting me, and how much money had been raised so far, that helped to keep me going."

He added: "Now it's nice to just relax. I'm just sitting on the boat, eating a Tracker bar and having a cup of tea."

DJ Mills told the comedian that £400,000 had been pledged so far - £100,000 off of the half a million Walliams hopes to eventually raise.

Walliams added: "I'd like to say thank you to all the listeners that got behind me, it's made all the difference."

The comedian said afterwards that his body had allowed him "one day" of exertion.

He said: "Conditions were good today but it was really, really tough - parts of it were misery. But I'm delighted that I managed to do it.

"I got about half way and thought 'I can do this'. Then I just tried not to think too much about what I was doing and got on with it.

"The reason I did this was to raise money for Sport Relief and its not too late for people to sign up for the Sport Relief Mile and raise money too - but I wouldn't recommend coming down to Dover, stripping off and trying to swim to France, because its quite difficult!"

Speaking to BBC News 24 he added: "I just had this amazing adrenalin surge.
"I have never done anything sporty in my life, I have never run a marathon or done anything, I was always useless as sport at school.

"It is like for some reason my body has said 'well you can have one day of exertion' and that day was today."

He added: "All the support I have had from the public, I have got daily bulletins of like 'You have raised this amount of money' it has just really kept be going."

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