Limbless Frenchman to swim around the world

French swimmer Philippe Croizon, who has no arms or legs, plans to swim around the world by tackling crossings between all five continents.

But he was determined not to give up on his cross-Channel challenge, and sent a plea for help to Arnaud Chassery, who had already swum the 20 mile (32km) crossing between France and the UK once.

Mr Croizon and his new swimming partner Chassery have now unveiled their plan to link the world's five continents by swimming across a series of narrow straits that separate them.

"When I called Arnaud, I said, 'Hi, I'm Philippe Croizon, I want to swim across the Channel'. And he said 'That's great!' And I said, 'Just a little detail, I'm not sporty'. 'Yeah OK, well you'll need to work at it'. 'I don't have any arms or legs'. 'Oh boy! That's going to be tough'. But he said to me straight away, 'No worries, I'm in Brittany at the moment training to swim across the Strait of Gibraltar, come and join me if you want to train," Mr Croizon joked at the Paris announcement.

Having lost his limbs following an electrical accident, the Frenchman said he wants to send a universal message.

"We are going to symbolically link the five continents, two little people like us, two little men, we're going to be able to build a bridge between the continents... That means that we're going to bring them together. Which means no one is very far from each other. So even if we have different political opinions, or skin colours, of even with our disabilitites, we all live on the same planet. And that's the clear message we want to send," he said.

Mr Croizon has already swum the English Channel, a feat which made him even more determined to take on the new challenge, reported The Daily Telegraph.

"When you've had a high dose of that sort of feeling, it becomes a drug, you can't get over it. When the Channel's over, you say 'Blimey, I'm not going to back to the sofa, I don't want to go back there, I got up from the sofa. I don't want to become a sofa-bound athlete.' That's how the new adventure started," he said.

The pair plan to leave France on May 6 for the first leg of their journey, linking Australasia and Asia by swimming from Papua New Guinea to Indonesia. Over the summer they will then cross the Red Sea (Asia to Africa), the Strait of Gibraltar (Africa to Europe) and the Bering Strait (Asia to America).

They plan to finish in the middle of August, after a brief trip to the White House, having swum a total of over 52 miles (85km) and spent 45 hours in the water.

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