{"id":263021,"date":"2025-07-14T01:43:24","date_gmt":"2025-07-14T01:43:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/263021\/"},"modified":"2025-07-14T01:43:24","modified_gmt":"2025-07-14T01:43:24","slug":"oscar-black-completes-solo-north-channel-swim-from-ni-to-scotland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/263021\/","title":{"rendered":"Oscar Black completes solo North Channel swim from NI to Scotland"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"BBCBBC<\/p>\n

Oscar Black, from Lurgan, made swimming history last week<\/p>\n

A 15 year old has become the youngest person to complete the North Channel swim from Northern Ireland to Scotland solo.<\/p>\n

Oscar Black, from Lurgan, County Armagh, swam from the Gobbins to Portpatrick last Wednesday in 16 hours and 38 minutes.<\/p>\n

As the crow flies, the two locations are 35km (21.7 miles) apart but due to strong currents Oscar swam a total of 46km (28.5 miles).<\/p>\n

The Lurgan College student said it was “hard to explain” the emotions he was feeling after his record-breaking swim. <\/p>\n

\"Oscar<\/p>\n

Oscar Black made swimming history in challenging conditions<\/p>\n

When he was 14, he completed the channel swim as part of a relay team.<\/p>\n

He told the BBC’s Good Morning Ulster programme<\/a> that he had to overcome jellyfish, strong currents and swimming in the wrong direction to set a new record. <\/p>\n

He had up to 20 jellyfish stings, “all over my body, from my feet to my nose”, he said. <\/p>\n

“There was a few times when I was contemplating why am I doing this,” he added.<\/p>\n

“It was more of a mental challenge than an actual physical challenge.” <\/p>\n

But Oscar says “it was all worth it in the end”.<\/p>\n

‘My head was away’ <\/p>\n

Oscar said the strong current made him start to worry that he was not going to finish the swim. <\/p>\n

“The current was bashing against me the whole time, I don’t think I moved for three hours,” he said.<\/p>\n

“Every now and again I’d look up to see if I was getting any closer to Scotland or not, every hour I could see I wasn’t getting any closer.<\/p>\n

“My head was away at that point.”<\/p>\n

\"jessika<\/p>\n

Jessika Robson supported Oscar during his swim <\/p>\n

Jessika Robson was Oscar’s support swimmer for the challenge. <\/p>\n

She said it was her job to “get in and swim with him to make sure he was sane”. <\/p>\n

“It was a very emotional swim to watch,” she said.<\/p>\n

“I got in with him from hour four to five and hour eight to nine.<\/p>\n

“I had to swim into Scotland with him as he started going the wrong way.”<\/p>\n

\"Oscar<\/p>\n

The swim took Oscar 16 hours and 38 minutes<\/p>\n

After finishing the open water swim and standing upright on the shore in Scotland, Oscar found out that he had to swim back to the boat. <\/p>\n

Due to shallow water, the boat was unable to dock close to the shore.<\/p>\n

“I couldn’t believe it, I was tired and exhausted,” he added. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BBC Oscar Black, from Lurgan, made swimming history last week A 15 year old has become the youngest…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":263022,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5011],"tags":[1144,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-263021","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-northern-ireland","8":"tag-northern-ireland","9":"tag-uk","10":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114849055521421701","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263021","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=263021"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263021\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/263022"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=263021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=263021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=263021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}