Courtney Paulk achieves historic Double Triple Crown

American marathon swimmer Courtney Moates Paulk has become the first person in history to achieve the Double Triple Crown of Open Water Swimming.

Having already completed a two-way Catalina Channel crossing and a double circumnavigation swim of Manhattan Island, Paulk finally achieved a double crossing of the English Channel on her fourth attempt.

The lawyer from Richmond, Virginia, completed the two-way English Channel crossing in 27 hours 36 minutes on 3 August.

The Triple Crown of Open Water Swimming is a long-distance swimming challenge consisting of three historic open water swims: English Channel (21 miles), Catalina Channel (20 miles) and a circumnavigation of Manhattan island (28.5 miles). Only 240 swimmers have completed all three swims. The Double Triple is the double accomplishment of the traditional Triple Crown.

Pualk came up with the idea for the challenge while sitting on the beach in California after completing her Triple Crown and she realised no one had done all three doubles.