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A stalwart swimmer has expressed her surprise and gratitude after discovering that a news story about her English Channel swim was featured in a recent GCSE English exam.
Sally Minty-Gravett said she was "flabbergasted" to learn of her appearance in the Eduqas GCSE English Language Paper 2 – which students across the UK sat yesterday.
The exam asked students to compare an article about Sally's 2022 Channel swim with one about the historic 1875 Channel crossing by Captain Matthew Webb, the first man to successfully swim the English Channel without assistance.
Pictured: Sally Minty-Gravett has broken several records throughout her swimming career.
Sally was informed by two parents, and shared the news on social media.
"It took me by surprise," said Sally. "I was very honoured and flattered."
She explained: "It was the father of somebody I had taught to swim when she was little, and they moved to England when she was like seven or eight. So it's probably eight or nine years ago.
"And he suddenly sent me this message on Facebook to say that his daughter had been in her GCSE exam, and one of the questions was an article about Captain Matthew Webb and my 2022 swim and my career over six decades."
Pictured: Sallly Minty-Gravett became the oldest woman to complete a two-way Channel swim in 2016 at the age of 59.
Sally said she has received an outpouring of messages from students and parents across the UK in response to the exam paper.
Many of them have expressed their admiration for her achievements and the impact her story has had on their own swimming aspirations.
"It's so nice that so many people are messaging me out of the blue who don't even know me," she said.
"If that helps somebody get back into swimming or makes people smile, that's wonderful."
Sally also joked that local kids should get extra marks for saying "Well, she taught me to swim!" in their GCSE answers.
Pictured: "I was very honoured and flattered."
Sally, who completed her first Channel crossing in 1975 at the age of 18, has since achieved the remarkable feat of swimming the Channel at least once in every decade of her life.
Her most recent crossing, dedicated to the memory of her late husband Charlie, took place in 2022, when she set off from Dover just after 05:00 and reached France 15.5 hours later.
Throughout her swimming career, Sally has broken several records.
In 2016, at the age of 59, she became the oldest woman to complete a two-way Channel swim, from England to France and back, in a time of 36 hours and 26 minutes.
To date, she has completed eight solo English Channel crossings.
Pictured top: Sally Minty-Gravett (Jon Guegan)
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