One year after becoming the first person confirmed to have swum from
Havana to Key West, Florida, without a shark cage, U.S. endurance
swimmer Diana Nyad was back in Cuba on Saturday to receive the country's
Order of Sporting Merit award.
After a ceremony led by First Vice President Miguel Diaz-Canel, Nyad called it "an honour, the most prestigious award I have ever received," and said she dreamed of uniting Cubans and Americans as good neighbours and friends.
Diaz-Canel said it was a "great honour" to award Nyad, and called her achievement a symbol of the friendship between the Cuban and American peoples.
Nyad swam from Cuba to the US, a distance of more than 110 miles (177 kilometres) from Havana.
She attempted the swim from Cuba to Florida four times before finally completing the journey on her fifth attempt one year ago, making her the first to make it without a shark cage.
She said her next project, to be launched in 2016, will be a million person walk across the U.S. from California to Washington, D.C. to combat obesity in America.
After a ceremony led by First Vice President Miguel Diaz-Canel, Nyad called it "an honour, the most prestigious award I have ever received," and said she dreamed of uniting Cubans and Americans as good neighbours and friends.
Diaz-Canel said it was a "great honour" to award Nyad, and called her achievement a symbol of the friendship between the Cuban and American peoples.
Nyad swam from Cuba to the US, a distance of more than 110 miles (177 kilometres) from Havana.
She attempted the swim from Cuba to Florida four times before finally completing the journey on her fifth attempt one year ago, making her the first to make it without a shark cage.
She said her next project, to be launched in 2016, will be a million person walk across the U.S. from California to Washington, D.C. to combat obesity in America.
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