Greek ultra-swimmer Spyros Chrysikopoulos has become the first person on record to swim from Greece to Italy, completing a 91.4-kilometer crossing of the Ionian Sea in 31 hours and 50 minutes.
The 43-year-old set out from Othonoi, the westernmost point of Greece in the Diapontia Islands, on August 31 and reached Santa Maria di Leuca on Italy’s Salento peninsula on September 1. He swam without interruption across open water, facing strong currents and shifting weather in the Strait of Otranto.
The attempt was documented by the Marathon Swimmers Federation, a nonprofit that records unaided long-distance open-water swims. Chrysikopoulos had tried the same crossing in 2024 but was forced to abandon it because of high winds, heavy seas, and jellyfish. Two years later he returned better prepared and finished the route.
The crossing adds to an already unusual record. In 2021 he swam 358.2 kilometers in seven days. In July 2025 he set a Guinness World Record for the farthest distance swum in 48 hours in a 50-meter pool, covering 151 kilometers without rest. In 2022 he also completed a continuous swim from Rhodes to Kastellorizo lasting more than 64 hours.
This latest swim was different from those pool and island efforts: a day and a half without sleep in exposed sea, with conditions that could change without warning. Persistence, not just distance, is what turned a failed 2024 attempt into a first documented Greece-to-Italy crossing.
