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SWIMMING

Brit ‘tried to swim from France to America’

A 34-year-old Londoner has been plucked to safety on the French Atlantic coast after making an impromptu bid to swim across the Atlantic to New York.

The Londoner was apparently gripped by a sudden urge to spread the Olympian spirit across the globe, daily Paris Normandie reports.

The man set off from a beach in Biarritz in the south-west of France, saying he would swim all the way to New York in the US. Friends on the seaside joked that a boat would rescue him if he struggled to make it there.

Luckily French lifeguards spotted him beyond the 300m authorised limit for swimmers on Saturday afternoon.

They called out a helicopter and dropped a diver into the Ocean who tried to convince the man to abandon his trip to the US.

"Our diver told him swimming to the US was not a good idea," says captain Laurent Saintespes, a senior officer at the Biarritz airbase. "But he insisted he was a capable swimmer and felt fine."

"It’s quite a crazy story, but at a time when the Olympic Games are taking place in London you have to see the funny side of things," says Saintespes.

He adds however that the swimmer did take a lot of risks, swimming far out to sea with no equipment, facing large waves and dropping temperatures.

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TRAVEL

Denmark opens way for summer trips to holiday islands

Denmark has opened up for self-isolation-free travel to a long list of European holiday islands, with the Balearics, Canary Islands, Azores, Madeira and Malta all classed as "yellow" in the updated travel restrictions issued on Friday.

Denmark opens way for summer trips to holiday islands
Danes will now be able to travel and return to the Playa de las Américas resort on Tenerife without self-isolation. Photo: Arnstein Rønning/Wikimedia Commons

Under the third phase of travel reopening which came into force at midnight on Thursday, those travelling from EU or Schengen countries classed as “yellow” no longer need to self-isolate on arrival in Denmark, meaning the change will allow Danes to return easily to some of the most popular holiday destinations. 

READ ALSO: Denmark eases travel restrictions: EU tourists can now come to Denmark

“This is the first time since before Christmas that you can now actually go on a regular holiday trip to destinations where we would all actually like to go on holiday,” Erik Brøgger Rasmussen, a director at Denmark’s foreign ministry, told the Ritzau newswire. “It’s not a huge reopening, but it is the first for many months.”

Most of the new regions now rated “yellow” in the revised travel guidelines released on Friday afternoon are Spanish, including the Balearic Islands (Mallorca, Ibiza etc), the Canary Islands (Gran Canaria, Lanzarote, Tenerife etc), the North African enclave of Ceuta, Asturia, Extremadura, Galicia, Murcia, and Valencia.

In Portugal, the Azores and Madeira are now rated “yellow”, as is the entire island nation of Malta. 

Rasmussen pointed out that all of the holiday areas which have been opened up for isolation-free travel are also open for travel from Denmark.

“The ones I have mentioned are also open at the other end, so to speak,” he said. “Portugal as a whole is also so low [in cases] that infection is not a problem. But they do not want us in at the moment, so we are not going to open up to the whole country.”

The changes come into force at 4pm on May 15th.

The only other change in travel guidelines was for travel from Nepal, which has now been rated a “red” country due to the prevalence of the new “Indian variant” of coronavirus.

“Nepal currently has a high infection rate, and as the variant of concern B.1.617 is now seen as widespread in several Indian states bordering Nepal, there is a high risk that B.1.617 may have spread to Nepal and be contributing to the current high incidence,” the foreign ministry said. “This means there is also a presumed high risk of travellers from Nepal importing this variant.”

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